One Last Kill
by Little.Miss.Chloe
Summary: Katniss Everdeen knew that she had to kill Cato, he was the only thing standing in the way of her and Peeta going home. But what she didn't know is that Cato had someone who loved him at home and his death meant her death. CATOxOC
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hunger Games_ or any of the recognizable characters. I do however, own Briar Greenlaw, so do what you will with that.

Notes: I'm Totally ignoring the whole Cato/Glimmer thing they had going on in the movie. What were they thinking?  
And I'm making Cato older than he was in the books, because I can and it works for the story.

I was originally never going to write this story, or any one about _The Hunger Games_. I loved the books and the movies, but I didn't want to touch it with a fanfic. I was pretty sure that I couldn't do it justice, I'm still sure I can't - but this idea got stuck in my head and it didn't give me any peace, it wouldn' call it mental masturbation, but I had to get it out.  
It was originally supposed to be a one-shot, but this is **TWELVE** pages single space in word, and I came to a good stopping point I think so I decided to make it a two-chapter one. The second chapter should be out by the end of this coming weekend.  
Enjoy.

* * *

Briar Greenlaw always wondered how it was done in the other Districts. The Reaping. She understood that in most of the outlying Districts volunteers were few and far between, that the children were too busy rejoicing in the fact that they were safe for one more year to be concerned about what that meant to those that were selected. That wasn't always the case, sometimes siblings would volunteer for one another, or if some poor, helpless handicapped kid was selected someone would have mercy for them and take their spots but it was nothing like what happened in the Districts closer to the Capitol, the districts that the careers came from. She's seen the Reapings from Districts One and Four with the volunteers actually fighting over who gets selected, but she always wondered if it was just for show, if they were run the same way the Reapings were done in her home, District Two.

District Two put out Career Tributes every year. And every year, with the exception of two Tributes, the Reaping was no big deal. Children were put into the training school at age twelve, they would continue training there until the last year they would be eligible for the games. Each year elders in the district and the mentors who had already won the games would select one boy and one girl who were in their last year of eligibility to volunteer for the Games. Each year two names were pulled at the Reaping, but they were never the ones who went to the Games. The two that had been selected by the elders would volunteer. The rule had been in place for years, there were no fights over who would volunteer as Tribute in District Two because if you weren't selected, you wouldn't be stupid enough to volunteer.

Those that volunteered as Tributes were always a surprise because the District elders had only two rules. One: If you were selected to volunteer, you volunteered - there was no chickening out. And Two: Once they they told you that you were selected you kept it a secret from everyone up until the moment you volunteered. They had little to worry about when it came to the first rule, in this District it was seen as an honor to go to the games so being selected by the town elders was considered an honor as well. Besides, the selected volunteers had been training for this for almost six years, because it was rare when the elders selected someone younger than just about to turn eighteen. Which was why, about to turn seventeen year old Briar was surprised when she was approached after training one day by a trembling twelve year old who told her that the District elders had requested to see her.

She still wasn't worried, to keep the element of surprise and to ensure that anyone spying on them wouldn't know their decision the elders often requested to meet with at least four girls and four boys so that no one knew which one they had selected. She was fine, she told herself as she walked toward's Silver Rankine's house in Victor's Village. She was just one of the decoys, someone that the elders were using to cover up their decision. She still had another year to train before they would even consider selecting her. She was safe. She shook her head, her long brown hair flying in the wind, she was being ridiculous - her mother would slap her if she knew that she had just used the word _safe_ to describe not being selected. Being selected was a great honor.

The front door opened in front of her, one of the poorer citizens that Silver hired to work around her house moved to the side to allow Briar to step past him and into the house. "Ahh, Briar," Silver's musical voice drifted from the study to the right of the front door. "Come in, I've been waiting for you."

-.-.-.-.-

"Are you worried about the Reaping?" Briar breathed a day later. She was laying in a green, grassy field on the outer edge of the District, near the fence with her best friend turned boyfriend; the two of them enjoying one more day of peace before the Reaping. It would be his last one as he turned eighteen during the next fall, but she was expected to have one more. He smirked and shook his head before he told her that she was being ridiculous, there was nothing to worry about.

She sent a grim smile in his direction before turning her head so that she could look at him. He was strong, muscular, good-looking, and solid. His body was all muscle, and hard lines and planes. His light blue eyes, that were so harsh at the training school were soft and kind as he looked at her now. His body, she thought, was like his eyes. It was strong and hard and capable of being deadly; but she knew how soft it could be, knew what it felt like to be wrapped up in his arms, feeling safe and sound and protected. She could honestly say that there was no where that she felt safer than in his arms. He must have noticed the way she was looking at him, studying him, almost drinking him in because he raised his eyebrows and reached over to brush some of her brown hair out of her face. "What's wrong Bri?" he asked softly, lifting up his arm and silently inviting her to roll closer to him and cuddle into his body, tucked safely under his arm.

"Nothing," Briar whispered, shaking her head, but taking him up on his offer and snuggling closer to him. "I just ... is it wrong for me to admit that I can't wait until we're both old enough not to have to worry about the Reaping anymore?" She tilted her head on his chest so that she could glance up at his face and see the effect of her words. His eyes narrowed. "Think about it, Cato," she breathed as she reached up to run her fingers through his short blonde hair. "I know that being a Tribute is an honor, but what I want more than bringing honor to the district is to be able to finally be with you without having nightmares about you being taken away from me."

Cato looked down at Briar for a moment before he wrapped his forearm around her neck, pulling her even closer to her chest, and bending his neck so that he could press a hard kiss to her hairline just above her forehead. He would never admit it to her, or anyone else for that matter, but he had those same nightmares about her. Briar was deadly at the training school; she could run faster and further than most of the girls, she had mastered knives, spears, the bow and arrow - hell, there wasn't a single weapon that Briar picked up that she couldn't master. And she was smart, so much smarter than Cato, himself. She knew how to play people, how to make them trust her, she would have no trouble gaining sponsors. And unlike him she never let her anger get the better of her, during training she was always cool and collected, never letting anyone know what she was really thinking.

But when he looked at her, really looked at her he didn't see any of those things. He saw his girlfriend. A small brunette who was no more than five feet tall. One who had strong, lean muscles, but seemed so breakable and vulnerable. When looked at her he saw her friendly smile and her sparkling brown eyes and the little five-year-old girl crying over a dead bird that would later become his best friend, his first and (according to his plans) his only girlfriend. In short, he saw the woman he loved. A woman that he never planned on losing. He pressed another kiss onto her forehead before loosening his grip around her neck. He couldn't tell her that he was worried about her, he wouldn't tell her. So he settled for the next best thing, hoping that she would hear the concern in his tone or read it in his words. "I saw you walking over to Silver's house," he whispered, his arms tightening around the small girl subconsciously, as if he could protect her just by holding her to him.

Another grim twist of her lips. Briar bit her lip for a moment, debating whether or not she should break the rule and tell Cato what Silver and she had discussed. She sighed, knowing that she would never break the rule, no one ever did - decoys after all were forbidden to tell people that they were the decoy. "You know we're not allowed to talk about that," she breathed out instead, hoping that he would hear the apology in her own words. She had picked up his fear and concern and she wanted him to know that she felt bad for causing it.

Cato studied her for another moment, his blue eyes full of concern before a teasing, wolfish grin found its way onto his lips. "You're right," he said with a nod, his smile only getting wider when Briar gasped. His smile always did that to her, always made her breathless. "We shouldn't talk about that," Cato continued to agree, moving his face closer to hers at the same time that he used his arms to easily pull Briar's body on top of his, holding her flush to his chest. "In fact," he added with a wink, stopping himself when his lips were a few centimeters away from Briar's, chuckling when she tried to close the distance. He stopped her. "We shouldn't be talking at all," he breathed before he closed the distance with a happy sounding chuckle and pressed his lips against Briar's in a rough, searing kiss.

"And let me guess," Briar said, a few minutes later, pulling away from Cato's lips so that she could breathe. His kisses made her as breathless as his smile did. "You can think of a thing or two we can do that doesn't involve any words at all?"

"Well it involves some words," Cato joked as he rolled them over so that Briar was laying on the grass, her chest heaving as she tried to regain her breath, the majority of his weight resting on his forearms so that he didn't squish his girlfriend. "The words I'm thinking of are of course: _harder_,_ faster_, _God yes_, and _I love you_."

Briar smiled up at him, lifting her arms so that she could grasp his face in between her hands. She shook her head, he could be so blatantly perverted sometimes and still make her feel how much he loved her. "I love you, Cato," she breathed before lifting her neck so that she could kiss him. He let her control the kiss that time, it was slow and soft. All gentle touches and licks until she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and bit down gently on it.

Cato groaned and pulled away from her. "You're going to kill me," he breathed, looking down at Briar with soft, joking eyes. "You're going to kill me faster than any Tribute in the Games could. Do you know that?" Briar wasn't a huge fan of the reference to any Tribute getting close to Cato, her Cato, but she nodded at the sentiment, she knew what he meant. Cato smiled down at her, lifting one of his arms from the grass next to her body so that he could gently run his knuckles down the side of her cheek, following her jaw line to her chin. "I love you too, Bri," he breathed, "Always will."

"Always will," Briar breathed back, repeating the promise as they had done ever since he had told her he loved her two years ago. "Always will," she whispered one final time as he moved in to kiss her again.

-.-.-.-.-

Hours later, once they were finished and Briar had gotten her fill of cuddling, Cato stood up from the grass and held his hand out to Briar, silently pulling her up next to him once she had slipped her small, delicate hand into his larger, stronger one. Without an invitation she had moved closer to him, wrapping her arms around his lower back and burying her face into his solid chest. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into her hair, the two simply breathing each other in for a few minutes as the afternoon sky began to darken, evening and twilight finally falling over their field. "I just want to stay here forever," Briar breathed softly, turning her head to the side so that she could look out over the field around them, she smiled slightly at the lightning bugs that were beginning to appear.

"Considering that traveling between the Districts is forbidden I think it's safe to say that we will stay here forever," Cato whispered, a wry smile on his face as he looked down at the small girl in his arms.

Briar scrunched her nose and shook her head, a small rueful giggle escaping her lips as if she didn't want him to know that she found his joke funny. "That's not what I meant and you know it," she said, tilting her head so that she could look up at her tall, blonde, boyfriend. "I want to stay _here_ forever. This field, this moment, in your arms. _Safe_. I want to be here forever."

Cato nodded, and leaned down, pressing a kiss onto Briar's forehead, her brow line, the tip of her nose, one cheek bone, then the other, her chin, the left corner of her mouth, and finally a chaste kiss onto her lips. "I know what you mean," he whispered against her lips, smiling slightly at her gasp when she felt his lips moving against hers, forming the words. "And I promise you, Bri, you will be safe. I will keep you safe for the rest of my life."

Briar nodded and kissed him back, keeping her thoughts to herself. She told him that she loved him, she told him that she knew he would keep his promise. But what she wanted to tell him was that she would only truly believe his promise to keep her safe once they were both eighteen and the Reapings and the Games were just memories of distant fears. Only then would she believe him. Only then would she ever really feel safe. Cato held her for a few more minutes before he squeezed her tight. "We should probably head back to the village," he murmured against her hair, not really ready to leave their field just yet. "Your brothers will kill me if you're not back by the time it gets dark."

He could almost sense Briar's reluctance as she slowly pulled herself out of his embrace. Did she know? He wondered absently as she took his hand and began to slowly walk back toward the village where they could see the lights of the houses glowing in the early evening light. Did she understand just how close her worries and concerns about the Games, the Tributes, and the selections hit home with him? He shook his head, she couldn't, he had been a lot more careful than she had been when he walked to Victor's Village to meet with Flux Yule, this year's current mentor. He had done it in the middle of the night, snuck out of his house to do so and once he had received the news he had run to their field to scream and yell until all the anger left him and all he was left with was the feeling of honor and pride that he had been selected out of all of the young men in his District to volunteer as Tribute.

He hadn't looked back once he left the field in the hour before dawn that day, hadn't been angry anymore. Hadn't cursed the District elders or Victors. He hadn't regretted training as hard as he had or anything. He was happy to be chosen, complimented even. The only time he began to feel upset about the selection now was when he looked at Briar and thought of all the worry and stress he was going to put her through. He intended to make good of his promise, to keep her safe and happy for the rest of his life. He planned to come home to her. But that wouldn't stop her from worrying. The best he could do for her now was to give her some good memories to remember while he was in the Games and to keep the worry lines from her face until tomorrow when he stepped forward to volunteer.

He sighed when he looked at her, walking silently beside him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. He wasn't doing a very good job of making her forget about the Reaping as of yet. He let go of her hand and moved to stand in front of her, "Hop on," he said, bending his knees slightly to bring his six foot, two inch frame closer to her level. He heard her giggle before he felt her small hands on his shoulders and she vaulted herself onto his back. "There's my little monkey," he teased gently as he began to walk through the field, smiling at the feeling of her - soft and warm and real, pressed against his back.

They didn't say much more as they left the meadow, they said even less once they had reached the outer edges of the village. Cato didn't mind that Briar knew he was capable of having a softer side, but he didn't want other people to know. Briar moved to hop off of his back as they approached the first houses as she always did when he would give her a piggy-back ride, but he wouldn't let her. In the past he had always been possessive of Briar, protective, but he usually drew the line at public displays. The boys in the District knew that Briar was his and they left her alone. But he would be leaving the next morning, and the threat of his possible return might not be enough to keep the boys away from his Briar. So he was using this final night with her, this final piggyback ride as a warning to any man who happened to see them and would pass it along to his friends: Briar belonged to Cato. She was happy with him, they loved each other, and he was going no where. She would always belong to him. Judging by the nod he received from a passing nineteen year old that worked in the mountain, the warning was received.

Briar did not seem to notice any of this. When she realized that Cato had no intention of letting her down she wrapped her legs and arms around him tighter and pressed a soft kiss onto the side of the neck. She didn't say anything, she didn't need to. Cato knew that she understood that something had changed between them, even if she didn't know what had changed. He knew that tomorrow, after he had left she would think back to this moment and realize that he was staking his final claim, letting people know that he would come back and that she had better be here for him when he did.

"Cato?" Briar asked, a few minutes later as they approached her lawn and house. Cato hummed, wordlessly letting her know that he was listening while he set her down. He didn't need to warn her brothers to keep away from her, in fact one of them, the eldest Spens, might even get upset at how possessive he was. Cato couldn't stop the smirk from sliding across his lips as he pictured Spens' response if he knew about what Cato and Briar had done in their field that afternoon - what they had been doing in that field for the last several months. "What's your favorite dress of mine?" Briar asked, reaching out to grab his hand as they slowly walked across her lawn.

"Any one that isn't on you anymore?" Cato asked with a quirk of his eyebrows. Briar sent him a look that clearly said, _be serious_. "I don't know," Cato said with a shrug. "Why does it matter." Briar told him that it mattered because it was his last Reaping and she wanted to give him something pretty to concentrate on during the ceremony. Cato's smirk slipped off his lips faster than a match lit when struck, she must know about the selection, that was the only reason for her question. She had to know that he was expected to volunteer. He shook his head, there was no way that she could know that and there was no way that he could ask her anyway, it would break the rules. "The one shoulder one," he finally managed to choke out as the approached her front door. "That green one? I've always liked the way your skin looked up against that color."

Briar smiled as she stepped up onto the steps, stopping on the second one and turning around so that her face and Cato's were almost level. "Then I'll wear that one," she said with a wider smile as she leaned forward to press her lips against Cato's in one final goodnight kiss.

Before he could stop himself Cato wrapped his arms around Briar's waist, lifting her off her step and pulling her closer to his chest and deepening the kiss. He didn't care if her brothers saw them kissing. They wouldn't get another chance in the morning and the next chance they would get was in the Hall of Justice after ... well after he changed her life forever. She giggled when she pulled away from him and wriggled in his arms until he put her down on the step. "I love you, Cato," she whispered.

"I love you too, Bri," he whispered, leaning forward so that he could press his forehead against hers, just looking at her and breathing her in. "Always will."

"Always will," Briar repeated before kissing his nose and slowly pulling away to head into the house.

-.-.-.-.-

Later that night in her room Briar cried herself to sleep with her knuckles shoved in her mouth to keep herself from making too much noise.

But she never planned on letting anyone know that. She needed to be strong.

-.-.-.-.-

The next morning Briar woke up early to get ready for the Reaping. She changed into her dress, the green one-shoulder one that Cato liked so much and allowed her mother to do her hair and even put some make-up on her face. Briar had never been much of a fan of make-up, but she needed to look her best that day, for Cato. "You look beautiful," her mother said, clapping her hands together excitedly as she stepped away from her daughter. "That poor Tribute who has to volunteer, the cameramen won't be able to take their eyes or their lenses off of you." Briar smiled up at her mother and murmured her thanks before moving around her mother to grab a pair of shoes and head downstairs to try to eat some breakfast with her brothers.

She had purposefully timed her waking up and getting ready so that she would have as little time to sit around the house and wait as possible. The District's children were expected in the square outside of the Justice Hall at nine o'clock short to begin signing in and lining up. A glance at the clock told her that it was quarter-till. Her plan had worked, she hardly had time to eat, she needed to begin heading toward the square now. She smiled at her brothers and pressed a kiss onto her father's cheek before she grabbed an apple from the table and headed toward the front door, smiling her first honest smile of the morning when she opened the door and saw Cato standing in front of her, hand poised to knock. "I was looking for you," he said with an easy grin once he saw her.

"Well you found me," she said, stepping out onto the porch and wrapping her arm around his waist so that he could give her a side hug. "I must suck at the game of hide-and-seek we've got going on, hmm?" Cato smiled down at her and shook his head before leaning in to give her one soft kiss on her lips. "I missed you," she breathed out once he had started to pull away from her. "It was only a night and I missed you."

Cato chuckled and leaned in for one more kiss, "Good morning, Briar Patch," he whispered once he pulled away. He unwrapped his arm from around her waist and held it out to her, requesting to hold hands, "Shall we?"

Briar shook her head, a playful smile resting on her lips, "We shall," she said with a nod, but she didn't slip her hand into his waiting one. "If you put your arm back where it was. It's too early for me to walk on my own and this dress is not a good choice for piggyback rides."

Cato smiled at her before he wrapped his arm around her, holding up practically all of her weight as they walked toward the main square. He knew that she was just making an excuse about it being too early, she had to know because with every step they took closer to the Hall of Justice she looked more and more like she was going to be sick. He opened his mouth to say, something, anything to make her feel better, but he couldn't think of anything besides, "I love you, Briar."

She turned her head to look at him, stalling the time before they had to separate so that they could go sign in and stand with their own genders. "Always will," she said softly, standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss onto his chin, the only part of him that she could reach. He wanted to kiss her properly, but she seemed to have other plans, she had already turned and started to walk away before he had caught her hand and made her stop moving. He caught her chin, gently tilting her head up and bent down so that he could press a kiss onto her lips.

"Always will," he repeated once he pulled away.

Briar bit her lip and tried not to cry when she finally moved away from him to go sign in. She didn't notice the pain of the pin prick, she was numb as she moved to stand with the other sixteen year olds from her district. She wasn't even freaking out, she was in too much pain to truly feel anything. She only half paid attention while the escort showed the District children the video about the history of the games.

She knew it was just part of the tradition, District Two was practically coddled by the Capitol, not that any of the other Districts really knew that. It was a secret. And then, before she knew it, the escort was standing up on stage, "Happy Hunger Games!" he yelled, smiling at the large applause his statement got from adults and children alike who were ready to bring more honor to their District. "And may the odds be ever in your favor!" Briar couldn't help the grim smile that set in on her lips at that, the odds were far from in her favor, but they would be. She glanced to her left and back where the older boys were standing. Cato caught her eye and winked at her she smiled back until she realized that the smile on her boyfriend's face didn't reach his eyes as it usually did. Did he know? But it was too late to wonder that because the escort was saying, "Ladies first," and moving toward the bowl with the list of girls names.

A sudden burst of whispers burst from the girls as it did every year. People were whispering _good luck_ to each other, not that they really needed it and guessing at who had been selected to volunteer. Briar heard whispers of _Valeria Ballantynn,_ a particularly fierce seventeen year old, but she was only good with hand-to-hand combat, put her up against a spear or a bow and she was dead. _Althea Combe_, was another popular name, but Althea had asthma so even though she was almost as good as Briar no one would ever dream of selecting her to go into an arena where she would only have her medicine if a sponsor was willing to pay for it. The whispering finally stopped as the escort moved closer to the microphone and opened the sheet of paper.

"Briar Greenlaw," he read out in a hard, clear voice. Briar's head snapped up, she hadn't expected that. She glanced around, waiting for whoever was supposed to volunteer before she realized that no one was going to. No one was going to volunteer because that would be breaking the rules, Briar had been selected by the District elders and victors - whether her name had been pulled out of the Reaping bowl or not she was going to go up on that stage. She dared to send one look at Cato, just one look. He was staring at her with wide eyes, as if he could not believe this had happened to her, he quickly looked around, waiting for someone to step forward and volunteer, but no one would, no one would be able to save her. She took a deep breath and forced herself to stop shaking before she began move forward toward the aisle in between the boys and the girls. She had taken three steps down the center aisle when a voice called out from where the fifteen year old girls stood.

"I volunteer!"

-.-.-.-.-

"Briar Greenlaw!" Cato stared at the escort in surprise for a moment before turning to look at Briar. She looked just as surprised as he felt, although he couldn't understand why. His name had never been pulled from the bowl before, he imagined it could be a surprise, but Briar shouldn't worry, their District would never send in a sixteen year old. His eyes darted one row behind Briar's to where the girls in his age group stood. He waited, wondering why no one stepped forward to volunteer, the District Elders were going to be mad. And then movement caught his eyes.

He turned back to see Briar slowly making her way toward the middle aisle. Her face no longer held a look of surprise, but rather a calm mask - the one he had seen countless times at the training school. The one the ensured no one could read her emotions. Damnit, why wasn't anyone volunteering for her? And then it hit him.

No one would volunteer because Briar had been the one that was selected. It happened every once in a while, the person who was selected to volunteer was also the named pulled at the Reaping. It happened rarely enough that he could only remember one time when a boy, Talon Jardine, had been Reaped, the air had felt much like this while everyone waited for a volunteer before realizing there wasn't one. Talon would have ended up on that stage no matter what.

He stared at Briar's back, she was making a point not to look back at him - he could tell from the set of her shoulders and the tense way she walked. She looked strong, she looked ready, but he could see the way she held her hands, digging her thumbnails into her palms in a way to stop the shaking. She looked so breakable to him, so soft and small. She looked like she wasn't going to last long in the Arena. He knew she would, she was skilled and smart, that's why the District elders and victors had chosen her, but when he looked at her all he saw was his small nervous girlfriend.

Suddenly their discussion from yesterday in the field made sense to him. She hadn't known about him. She had been worried about her having to go the Games. And he had dismissed her fears as if they were nothing. He had called her _ridiculous_. He had mentally promised himself that he would come back to her. But she hadn't been worried about that, hadn't been thinking about him coming home to her. She had been worried about coming home to him, she had wanted to know what his favorite dress was so that he could remember her in it if she didn't come home from the Arena, in case she died.

His eyes widened when he realized that Briar would be going up against twenty-three other teenagers, all of whom were hoping for her death. _Twenty-two_, he corrected himself because he would be there too, he had been selected, and he wouldn't be trying to kill her. But by trying to protect her in the Arena, by not killing her he was signing his own death sentence. Only one Tribute ever came out of the Hunger Games alive. As he watched Briar slowly walk toward the stage he knew that she would be the one to come home, he'd protect her until the end, until they were the final two and then he'd, commit suicide or something. He wouldn't be the one to kill her, and he refused to let anyone else touch her either.

His thoughts were cut short when a voice rang out from the crowd, "I volunteer!"

-.-.-.-.-

Briar was startled by the voice. She turned her head quickly, looking for the person who was not only brave enough to volunteer, but brave enough to ignore the District elders' wishes and to volunteer when she hadn't been selected. The face registered in her memory, she knew the girl, Clove something. She stopped moving toward the stage and watched with wide eyes as Clove began moving toward the center aisle. She knew the rules from the other Districts, the ones where there were multiple volunteers, whoever reached the stage in front of the Hall of Justice went to the games. She had started moving before Clove had, but Clove was in front of her. She didn't know how fast the girl was, but she could still race to the stage. There was still a possibility of her getting there.

She tensed her muscles, preparing to run, but the slightly taller brunette turned her head and shot her a look that clearly told her to stay where she was and not to move, and then before Briar realized what was happening the younger girl had turned and sprinted toward the stage. "No!" Briar yelled, but it was too late, Clove had climbed up on the stage. Briar turned toward where the adults stood watching the Reaping, taking in the surprised looks on the District elders' faces. They hadn't expected this anymore than she had. She turned to look at Cato, while the escort expressed his surprised at the turn of events, she expected to see a look of disappointment on his face. But that's not what she saw, he looked relieved. He caught her eye and nodded at her, as if he was glad that she hadn't made it to the stage first.

And then the escort was calling out that it was time to select a boy. The peacekeepers didn't seem to care that Briar was still standing in the center aisle so she stayed there as the escort called out the name of some twelve year old that she didn't recognize. She didn't care, they were safe - she and Cato were safe. She honestly thought they were safe until she heard his voice ring out loud and clear, volunteering as Tribute. And then it seemed as though her whole world was falling down around her.

She didn't notice the way every child's head seemed to turn to look at her. She didn't notice the looks of pity on their faces. She didn't even realize that she should be relieved that Clove had volunteered for her because if that hadn't, she would have been faced with going into the Arena with Cato. She didn't even notice when Cato stepped out from his spot among the boys and walked past her, gently reaching out and stroking his fingers down her arm in a soothing gesture as he moved past her. The only thing she could focus on was forcing herself not to cry as she watched him move toward the stage unchallenged, no one went against the District elders this time and the escort was announcing that Cato and Clove were the Tributes from District Two.

She would go see him, of course she would, before he was sent off to the Capitol, but first she had to go see Clove. She had a question to ask her. She joined the line outside of the room the small brunette was waiting in, thankful that it was a short one, so much shorter than Cato's she would get a chance to see both of them. Since she knew that they were only allowed three minutes she didn't bother beating around the bush once she walked into the room, flinching when the door shut behind her. "Why did you do it?" she asked, moving closer to the window that Clove was standing in front of.

"Do you really have to ask?" Clove asked, arching up an eyebrow as she looked at the older, shorter brunette that was now standing in front of her.

"The District elders won't be happy with you," Briar pointed out. "Hell, they won't be happy with me either for not racing you to the stage. Have they shown up to yell at you yet?"

Clove shook her head, "But I'm sure they won't mind once I explain my reasoning." Briar raised her eyebrows, silently asking the young girl to explain to her why she had volunteered. Clove sighed and shook her head and murmured, "I thought you were smarter than this," under her breath before she began to explain. "I was honestly surprised that you didn't seem to realize that Cato was going to be selected, it was their last chance to use him and he's the deadliest boy we have. You were a surprise, I kept waiting for someone to volunteer before I realized that you had been selected as well. I'm willing to be they didn't realize that the two of you are dating, you don't act like it at training, because sending a couple into the Arena is a liability. What would happen if one of the other Careers noticed that you and Cato were in love? It could be easily used against the two of you."

"How?" Briar asked, her brows furrowing as she tried to understand how it could be used against them. She usually was smarter than this, but her brain was foggy, as if it couldn't make any sense out of what was happening around her and had finally decided to just give up trying.

"What would Cato do if someone killed you?" Clove asked, raising one of her eyebrows.

"He'd go crazy," Briar answered without even needing to think about it. Cato would see red, he would try to kill anything that moved around him. But with extreme rage came blindness, he would be angry and anything he focused his rage on would be a goner, but he wouldn't be concerned about watching his own back, the other Careers in Clove's example would easily be able to gang up on him and kill him. "He'd make mistakes."

Clove nodded. "And as calm and collected as you are at training I would be willing to bet that you would do the same thing if someone hurt him. It's a risk that I wasn't willing to take for the District and I'm sure the elder's will be able to understand it."

Briar nodded, unsure of what to do now that her question had been answered. Before she could catch herself she had moved forward and wrapped her arms around the younger girl, silently thanking her for what she had done. Clove flinched at the sudden touch for a moment before she awkwardly wrapped one arm around Briar's lower back, half hugging her in return. "Good luck," Briar said softly as she pulled away. Clove said that she had volunteered for the District, but Briar allowed herself to be convinced that part of the reason had been because even though she didn't know Briar and Cato Clove didn't want to watch the couple have to decide who made it out of the Arena alive. "I'd say I hope you make it back, but - "

"But you wouldn't mean it," Clove answered for her with a soft nod. "And that's okay."

Briar nodded, shooting Clove one more grateful look before she quickly turned and left the room to join the line outside of Cato's room. The line seemed to part for her, as if everyone seemed to sense that she was higher on Cato's priority list than they were. And she was, always would be. She waited at the front of the line for his family to walk out, his mother paused to brush her fingertips over Briar's face softly before they moved away and it was her turn to walk into the room. She was surprised when the peacekeeper at the door told her that she had five minutes ... that was more than the three minutes she had gotten for Clove, but she wasn't going to fight it, that was two extra minutes.

She rushed into the room, not even noticing the door slamming shut behind her as she threw herself into Cato's waiting arms. She had promised herself that she wouldn't cry in front of him so instead hugged him tightly, practically digging her fingernails into his sides as she buried her head in his neck and just breathed him in, taking fast deep breaths. "Hey, hey, hey," Cato breathed softly, running his hands through her hair, over her face, anywhere he could touch. "Briar Patch," he said softly, trying to get her attention. "You need to calm down, you're going to give yourself a panic attack."

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Briar breathed out, but she did listen, she forced herself to calm down, taking even breaths now, but still breathing him in as if she could commit his smell to memory. "This wasn't supposed to happen, you and me were supposed to be okay. You weren't supposed to be going to the Games."

"And you were?" Cato asked, drawing away from her enough that he could hold her face between his hands and force her to look at him. "Briar," he said, calling her by her full name so that it almost sounded like he was scolding her. "I was supposed to stay here and watch you as you fought to survive?" he shook his head. "Even if I hadn't been selected to volunteer, I would have just to protect you, to hell with the District elders."

"I wouldn't have had to worry about you if you were here and safe," Briar whispered, rapidly blinking her eyes to force the tears to stay in her eyes instead of spilling over and running down her cheeks like they were threatening to do at the moment. "I would have known that you were safe, that you would be waiting when I came home."

"And I would have sat and worried," Cato said, shaking his head. "Either way one of us is safe and one of us is fighting for their life. I won't lie to you; I'm much more comfortable with this situation, the one where you're safe, than the first option. I don't know what I would have done if Clove hadn't volunteered to take your spot," he admitted.

Briar's breath hitched at the sound of the younger girl's name. "You need to take care of her," she said, giving him a stern look, pulling away slightly so that he would know she was serious. Cato nodded, but he wouldn't let her pull away. "You need to make sure that she's safe from the other Tributes, she put her neck out on a line for us. Keep her safe as long as you can, and then when the time comes you need to kill her. Do it nicely, don't draw it out or make it painful and bloody. But you need to kill her because you need to come home to me."

Cato nodded "I will, Bri, I'll come home to you," he said, still clutching Briar's face between his hands as he leaned forward to press his lips hard against hers. Briar leaned into the kiss, used her own lips to soften it and moaned when Cato's tongue slipped in between her lips. She could get lost in this, but she had no time. She still had things she needed to tell him so she pulled away slightly, just enough so that she would be able to talk to him.

"I'm not going to tell you to be honorable or kind or any of those good things that I know you can be because none of those things will save you. I want you to be smart, ruthless, and cunning when you get there. Do it for me?"

Cato nodded again, pressing another kiss onto Briar's lips before sighing and saying something he had been thinking about for a while. "I'm not," he said slowly, pausing after his first two words. "I'm not going to talk about you," he said with a nod, glancing at the small brunette to gauge her reaction. Briar nodded calmly, waiting for an explanation. "I'm not going to lie, if someone asks about a girlfriend I'll tell them your name, but I'm not going to go in depth. I'm not going to talk about how I need to come home to you."

Briar nodded, it was a smart plan. While the people of the Capitol would love the idea of Cato fighting in the Arena to come home to the girl he loved many of the potential sponsors would actually find it as a weakness. "See," she said, trying to smile up at him and probably failing based off the look on his face, "You're already being smart."

"But I want you to know," Cato said, dropping one of his hands from her cheeks so that he could grab one of her hands and lift it to his lips, pressing a soft, gentle kiss onto the back of her hand, the tips of her fingers, her palm, the inside of her wrist. "When I talk about bringing honor and pride and glory to my District I'm really talking about you. I'm telling you that I love you."

Briar nodded and sent him a smile, a real one. "It'll be like a code," she whispered softly.

"Exactly," Cato said with a nod before he leaned in and captured Briar's lips in a deep, loving kiss again. He hoped that he could convey every word they didn't have time to say to each other in that kiss. Briar seemed to be having the same thoughts as she wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him even closer. All too soon the peacekeepers were walking into the room and telling them that it was time for Briar to leave.

"Be brave," Briar said, pressing a hard closed-mouth kiss to his lips. "Be strong," another kiss. "Come home to me."

"I will," Cato said with a nod and one final kiss before he forced himself to pull away from her. He held his hands in front of his face, forming a frame, pretending it was a camera lens, "This is going to be how I remember you until I come home," he said softly, just staring at Briar from in between his hands. "Beautiful, hopeful, smiling, thoroughly kissed, and in love with me."

"And that will be exactly what I look like when you come back," Briar said with a smile. "I love you Cato," she breathed as the peacekeeper walked closer to her, gently wrapping his arm around her upper arm and softly pulling her backwards out of the room.

"I love you too, Briar. I love you too, Bri," he said, holding his hand out as if he could still touch her. "Always will."

"Always will," Briar repeated, holding her hand out to him too and refusing to take her eyes off of him until the peacekeeper had shut the door behind them. "Always will."

* * *

Author's Note:  
And that's all for now. I'm not completely happy with it, but I like it.  
What do you guys think?  
**REVIEW LOVE** is always appreciated.  
Hugs and kisses,  
Chloe Jane.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hunger Games_ or any of the recognizable characters. I do however, own Briar Greenlaw, so do what you will with that.

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And once again I've decided to make this longer. Originally this chapter was supposed to stretch from Cato leaving District 2 until the end of the Games. Once you finish reading it you will realize that it got no where close to that. In fact, I failed miserably.  
And yet, I'm really happy with what I did with this chapter. It's **SEVENTEEN **pages long in word and **11,615** words long. That's like MASSIVE. So have fun reading it and **DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!**

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Everyone told her that the first night would be the worst. They told her that if she could just get through the first night after the Reaping that things would get better. They said that she would get over the shock of Cato not being there anymore and she'd be back to normal. They told her that she would feel be better by the next day, all her worry and shock would disappear and she would only be left with pride for her brave boyfriend and faith that he would win. They told her a lot of things, and she had assumed that they knew what they were talking about. It was people who had stayed behind in District 2 while they waited for their significant others to come back from the Games. But they didn't know Cato and Briar, they weren't part of their relationship. Yes, they said that the first night would be the worst. They told her that things would get better after that.

But they were wrong. The first night wasn't just bad, it was horrible, unbearable even. She had waited until Cato and Clove had boarded the train that would take them to the Capitol before she broke down. The day before she had been trying not to cry because she thought that she was going to have to leave Cato; all day she had been trying not to cry because she wanted to appear strong for Cato, she didn't want him to worry about her when he had bigger, deadlier things to worry about. But the moment the train pulled out of the station she lost all of her resolve. She crumpled in on herself, doing everything in her power not to fall onto the ground. She didn't need to worry her brother, Griffin wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to his body, holding her tight against him so that she wouldn't fall. "It's going to be okay," he whispered, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. "Just wait until we get home, just wait until we get home."

Briar wanted to ask why, but when she looked up she already knew the answer. She could see her face being broadcasted on the big screen that the Capitol had erected at the train station so those standing toward the back of the crowd could see the Tributes boarding the train. The people in charge of broadcasting the Games had noticed the way Cato had tried to soothe her at the Reaping that morning, had noticed the way his eyes lingered on her from the door of the train as it pulled away from the platform. They didn't know how serious things were between them, but they knew there was something there. They were watching her reaction now, maybe even broadcasting it throughout the entire country during the recaps of the Reapings. She nodded, refusing to let anyone see her being weak and forced her chin up. She took a moment or two to steady herself before she stepped out of Griffin's arms and turned to leave the platform.

Once again the crowd parted for her, it wasn't as sudden as it had been in the lines outside of Cato's room. It was as if everyone were stalling, to get a chance to see her face, to see if she was as strong as they had always believed her to be. Briar was used to being looked at, even though everyone in the village near the mountain knew who she was, they were constantly looking at her, watching her. At the training center the kids were always watching her for cues as to what they should be doing, or trying to measure themselves up against her. And at her village the adults watched her, discussing the odds of her getting selected to volunteer as Tribute at the games before her eighteenth birthday.

But this was different. This time they weren't whispering about how they thought she would stand up against Tributes from other Districts. This time the only whispered words she heard were ones of comfort. Whispered apologies and _be strong_'s accompanied by soothing brushes of fingertips across her face or arms, an older mother reaching out to brush the hair from her eyes, a childhood friend that she hadn't talked to since he had left the training school reaching out to gently grab her hand in his for a moment before letting go and looking at her with an apologetic smile. All of the sympathy was almost worse than if they had simply ignored the fact that the love of her life had just been loaded in a train to fight for her life. In fact, Briar almost wished they had just ignored her, that would have made for a less interesting scene than the one the Capitol was still broadcasting on the screen. She just wished that they would shut the cameras off already. It was bad enough that the people in her own District could see how close she was to breaking down, she didn't need the whole country or Cato seeing it during replays. She turned her head to look at Griffin who hadn't left her side, "Get me out of here," she whispered.

Griffin nodded and grabbed her hand before he started to pull her quickly through the crowd, gently pushing her in front of him so that his taller body shielded her from the cameras. "Just wait until we get to the house," he breathed into her ear as he continued to guide her through the crowd at a quick pace. "And then you can cry all you want to. Just be strong for a few more minutes." Briar nodded and allowed him to continue guiding her home.

They made it to the house faster than she had expected, and true to his word the moment the door shut behind them Griffin stopped whispering to her to stay strong and simply wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him. Briar didn't want or need the hug, she had been fully prepared to go to her room and cry into her pillow, one that probably still smelled like Cato because she was aware that some people wouldn't understand why she was crying. Going to the Games was an honor, she should be proud of him, not crying over his absence. She expected Griffin to say something like that, but he simply held her to his chest and allowed her to cry. After about five minutes she pulled away from him and lifted her hands to wipe the tears off of her cheeks. "I'm okay," she said softly with a nod. "I just," she gestured behind her toward the hallway that led to her room. "I need to be alone for a little bit." Griffin nodded and told her that he understood before squeezing her upper arm and backing away from her.

Briar nodded, glad that she and Griffin were the only ones home at the moment. Her other brothers wouldn't understand, her father got nervous anytime someone brought up a boy and Briar in the same sentence, and her mother wouldn't have left her alone. She would have meant well, but her mother was overbearing at the best of times. Griffin though, he understood her, knew when to approach her and when to give her space. He was exactly what she needed right now, besides Cato of course, but he was the reason that she was in this situation. She nodded once more before she turned and walked into her bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind her. She made it to the bed before she started crying again, and wrapped herself around the pillow that still held traces of Cato' scent.

-.-.-.-.-

Her family left her alone, for the most part, which was something she was grateful for. Her mother had come to her room twice to see if she wanted something to eat before she realized that not only was Briar not going to unlock her door, but that the girl had no plans on coming downstairs to eat with the family. So she left food on the floor outside the door, but when Briar finally snuck out of her room in the middle of the night she could see that the cat had eaten most of the food. She thought momentarily that she should be upset at the waste, but at least this way her mother would think that she had eaten something.

She snuck to the kitchen around one in the morning, but not to eat, she was sure that there was no way that she could keep food down, her stomach was too tight and nervous to eat. No, her goal was not food, but rather the back door and a house one street over. It took her about five minutes to walk to the modest two story house, it took her longer to decide that she would, in fact, break into it. She briefly considered simply knocking on the door and waking up his family, but she was embarrassed about how emotional she was being and really didn't want to face his family at the moment. Besides, she had snuck into his house more times than she could remember. This was going to be easy.

She moved around to the back of the house and smiled when she saw that the ladder that Cato had placed against the side of the back shed was still there. She wondered if his parents had even noticed it. She grabbed it and walked back to the house, softly aligning it with the window in the right corner of the wall, Cato's room. Climbing the ladder was easy, and she was pleased to see that when Cato had left for the Reaping that morning he hadn't locked the window. Opening the window from the outside shouldn't have been as easy as it was, but years ago Cato had fixed the window so that as long as the lock was put fully in place the window could be opened from both sides. She had snuck into his room a lot over the years. She climbed through the window and shut it behind her before finally turning to look at his room.

She felt fresh tears spring to her eyes at the sight of the room. Because nothing had changed. It still looked like Cato's room. His clothes still lay in a pile on his floor because he was too lazy to put them away or put them in his laundry basket. The glass of water they had been drinking the afternoon before was still on his bedside table next to a picture of the two of them kissing during a snow storm. He hadn't made his bed before he left, the sheets and comforter were laying bunched at the foot of his bed, he must have gotten hot the night before and kicked them off in his sleep. An unfinished book lay on the floor next to his bed, a bookmark holding his spot for him when he returned._ If he returned_ she corrected herself mentally before she forced herself to walk further into the room. He couldn't have expected to come back to the room that day, she realized because he had been selected, but the room still felt lived in. It felt as if at any moment Cato would walk through his bedroom door and spot her standing uncertainly by his window.

He'd smile at her as he walked toward the bed, maybe kicking the pair of dirty boxers under his bed in an attempt to hide them from her. He'd pat the spot next to him and wait patiently for her to cross the room and sit next to him. Then he'd wrap his arm around her shoulders and press a kiss onto her forehead, "What'd she do this time, Briar Patch?" he'd whisper softly, so as not to wake up his parents. He would be talking about her mother because more often than not it was Briar's mother that caused her to run to the comfort and quiet of Cato's room.

Briar bit her lip and held her breath, looking hopefully at his door before she realized that he was not going to walk through it. Not tonight, and not anytime soon. He was gone for now. It was something that she had to face. She moved over to his bed alone tonight and instead of sitting down on the edge she climbed into the exact middle of the bed, arranging herself in the crevice that Cato had made after years of sleeping in the same spot. She pulled the blankets up over her shoulders despite the heat and closed her eyes, breathing in his scent from all around her. As painful as it was to be in his room she felt more at peace here than she had all day. She could still feel him here, smell him here, imagine him here.

And it was here that she was finally able to fall asleep.

-.-.-.-.-

"Briar?" someone whispered, their hand gently shaking her shoulder. Briar grumbled and rolled over, it was too early to be awake. It was when while she rolled over that she began to take in her surroundings. She could tell by the smell that she was in Cato's room, and for a moment, wrapped up in his blanket with someone softly running their fingers through her hair Briar was able to believe that everything that had happened the day before had been a horrible dream, that Cato was still here and this afternoon they would curl up on her couch and watching the opening ceremony of the Games together like they always did. "Briar, Sweetheart, wake up." But something was wrong, that voice did not belong to Cato, the hand was not the same. "Bri?"

Briar slowly opened her eyes and turned her head to see Cato's younger brother sitting on the bed next to her.

"You know, I don't think you get to call me sweetheart if you're younger than me," she muttered as she closed her eyes and rolled over, trying to lose herself in the final memories of her dream, she had been wrapped up in Cato's arms. She rolled back over to look at the fifteen-year-old blonde sitting next to her. "He's going to come home, right?" she asked him. "He's going to come home, Gunnar?" He nodded and told her that of course he was going to come home. She nodded too, "I hate this," she whispered as she sat up in the bed and finally turned so that she could make eye contact with the boy who looked so much like his older brother. She smiled ruefully, "We were so close to being free from this. So close."

"You talk like you don't like the Games," Gunnar pointed out softly.

Briar's eyes narrowed for a moment before they returned to their regular size. She had gotten close to talking about this with Cato, but she had never done it. She knew that Cato believed in the Games, had been sucked into all the hype about bringing honor and glory. He wasn't a bad guy, he didn't honestly want to kill the other Tributes. But he would do it, he would do it to bring honor and pride to his District, he would do it to come home to her. She couldn't tell him how she really felt about the games, he would never understand it. But, as she looked at Gunnar; so trusting and kind, still soft - the training academy hadn't hardened him yet, she thought she might be able to tell him. She sighed, "I don't understand how the Capitol and some of the Districts enjoy this. They act as if the Tributes are soldiers, adults, but they're not. They're children that get sent into an arena to murder each other for entertainment. It's not right."

Gunnar looked at her with wide eyes for a moment before he shook his head. "You could get in a lot of trouble for talking like that," he said softly. Briar's eyes darted up to look at his face, the words he said had sounded like a warning, but she had only heard concern in his voice. He reached out and grabbed her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, "Just be careful who you share your opinions with, Bri." Briar looked at him in confusion, it wasn't that Gunnar was usually mean to her, but that they didn't normally talk. Gunnar seemed to sense her confusion because he smiled at her, "Cato told me to take care of you while he was gone," he said by way of explanation.

Briar smiled softly, that sounded like Cato. She was fully capable of taking care of herself, but Cato never believed her. He always told her that she was breakable, something precious that needed to be protected. Of course he would ask his brother to watch over her while he was gone. It didn't surprise her at all, but it did warm her heart, to know that he was still looking after her, even from the Capitol, even from the Games. She rested her head on Gunnar's shoulder and forced herself not to cry as she steeled herself for what was probably going to be a very hard day. "Your brother will be proud of you then," she said, lifting her head and smiling softly at the younger boy. "You're already doing a better job than he ever did." Gunnar smiled at the memory, a summer that every time he turned around Briar and Cato were getting in trouble for something.

"Be sure to tell him that when he comes home," he said with a chuckle as he climbed off the bed. "Mom says there's breakfast down stairs if you'd like some," Gunnar said, turning to smile at the surprised look on Briar's face. "Do you really think that they didn't realize that you snuck in here almost every night?" he asked with another chuckle. "They're old, but they're not stupid." Briar smiled at him and shook her head before she climbed out of the bed, pausing for a moment to sniff the blankets one final time before she followed Gunnar out of the room and downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast.

-.-.-.-.-

Cato's mother had fed her, hugged her and sent her back to her house with the promise that tomorrow would be easier. Briar wanted to believe her, needed to believe her even, but deep down she knew that it wouldn't. It wouldn't be better or easier until Cato was back in District 2 and safe in her arms. She didn't have anything to do once she got back to her house, there was no training school and nobody was working as the Games were treated as a holiday and it was required that everybody watch them. But they weren't required to tune in today until the evening to watch the opening ceremonies and the last thing Briar wanted to do until then was to sit around and watch recaps of the old Games, watching them once was enough in her opinion. She spent the day cleaning her room until her mother knocked on her door and asked her where she wanted to watch the opening ceremonies from. Usually she would have curled up on her couch between one of her brothers and Cato and watched; but Cato wasn't here this year, he was at the Games and she didn't want the town to think that she was hiding. She wanted to show them just how strong Cato's girlfriend was. She told her mother that she wanted to watch from the main square with everybody else.

Getting to the square was easy, Briar imagined that getting to a good spot would be difficult, but she was wrong Once again the crowd parted for her as if she was someone important, someone special. Her mother smiled and waved at people she recognized as the family walked through the crowd, but Briar frowned. She hoped that they would stop this soon. She wasn't any of those things, Cato was. Cato was important, he was special, and he was brave - so much braver than herself. She didn't deserve to be treated like this when the one who really did deserve this treatment was preparing to go into an arena and fight to the death. Briar breathed a sigh of relief when her mother finally found a spot that she deemed appropriate right before the screens lit up with the Capitol symbol and the broadcast of the opening ceremonies began.

If Briar was being honest with herself, she didn't pay any attention as Caesar Flickerman talked for a bit about the history of the Games and the opening ceremonies. She spent more time looking at her feet and counting rocks than looking at the screen. She only focused on the screen when she heard the music start to play, the music that signified the beginning of the Tribute Parade. District 1's Tributes looked beautiful, Briar couldn't remember their names from the replays of the Reapings, but their stylists had done an excellent job on them. They were spray painted silver and dressed in glittering tunics. Briar could tell by the cheer of those in the Capitol and the whispers of those around her that people approved of the outfits.

But she stopped paying attention to what was going on around her a moment later when the chariot for District 2 appeared on the screen. Her breath caught when she finally laid her eyes on Cato, barely acknowledging that Clove was standing beside him. He looked more beautiful than she had ever seen him and it had completely caught her off guard and taken her breath away. Her eyes roved over his image, taking in his costume first. It seemed that the stylist this year had followed the same theme as the stylists of all the previous years by dressing the Tributes as the Roman gods that they studied in their school books. There was nothing new about this costume, but Briar was sure that no Tribute had ever looked as good in it as Cato looked. She looked past the costume, practically drinking in Cato's image as if this was the last time she would see him. His face was stern and intense, but she could see the soft tilt to the corners of his lips, a look she knew well that told her that he was forcing himself not to smile at the attention they were getting. She smiled for him, of course Cato would love the attention, he had spent his entire life training for this, preparing for this, hearing that this would be his greatest life achievement.

All too soon the camera had pulled its focus away from the Tributes from District 2 to focus on the other Districts. But Briar could still see Cato in the corner of the screen and since she honestly didn't care about the other Tributes - she didn't need the parade to decide who to root for, it would be Cato; and she didn't need to size the other Tributes up against each other to see who would win, it would always be Cato - she had little to focus on besides trying to catch as many glimpses of her boyfriend as possible. She was so focused on him that she didn't even notice that District 12 was on its way down the parade route until she heard the noise of surprise from the crowd around her. Her eyes darted to the middle of the screen to take in the Tributes.

Her heart stuttered a bit when she saw them. They were breathtaking. It looked as if they had been set on fire, flames illuminating their faces and trailing along behind them in the evening light. Whoever their stylist was had made a good call when he or she decided to minimum make-up on their faces. But what really caught her attention was that the crowd in the Capitol was chanting for them, the girl's name was Katniss - Briar recognized her from the replays of the Reapings, she had volunteered to take her sister's place, Briar had respected her for that. It had to have been a first, the cheering for District 12, but what was even more odd and out of place was that the two Tributes were holding hands. While the Tributes from the other Districts had practically ignored each other, these two were holding hands and acting as if they were a united front. This was a strange tactic in the fact that in the outlying Districts where loyalty was valued almost more than victory it would be seen as almost worse than a crime to kill your fellow District Tribute. It would be stupid to form an alliance with them only to have to kill them toward the end. It bothered Briar that she could not understand what the two Tributes were planning.

And it bothered her even more that throughout President Snow's welcome speech the camera's focus kept slipping back on the Tributes from District 12. They didn't need any more focus, she thought. It was one thing to have a stylist that knew what he was doing, but it was another thing to actually have the skills to survive in the Games. And District 12 was not one of the Districts that had any real skills. Besides, she was there to see Cato.

-.-.-.-.-

They were wrong, the week leading up to the games was horrible. Briar almost believed that it would be easier once the games started because at least then she would be able to see Cato every day. But she didn't get to see him while they were training, she only got to watch as those in the Capitol gushed about who they were rooting for or considering sponsoring. The good news was that a lot of people seemed to want to sponsor District 2. District 12's stunt at the opening ceremonies had caught people's attention, but hadn't swayed anyone to support them. Whenever she turned on the television she could see the betting odds displayed on the bottom right corner of the screen, Cato and Clove were in the lead along with a boy from District 11, Thresh?

Briar was a nervous wreck the night the training scores were revealed. After District 2 had been displayed she calmed down a bit. Cato and Clove had both received tens. Those would probably be the best scores of the night. Briar smiled imagining that Clove had received her score for her knife-throwing skills while Cato, well he was good with almost any weapon - something the Game Makers were sure to have noticed. She got a bit nervous when the boy from District 11 got a ten as well, that was rare, but as she looked at his picture and the muscles in his arms she imagined it was for his strength. The girl from District 12 was the biggest surprise of the night. The boy had gotten an eight, not too threatening, but not so low that he could be ignored. Briar had assumed that the girl would score around the same, but then Caesar had said that she had a score of eleven. A training score of eleven was rare enough, but when it did happen it usually belonged to a Tribute from one of the Career Districts, not District 12.

Briar shook her head as she stared at the screen, not even listening as Caesar talked about how rare this was. It had to be some kind of mistake, she decided. There was no way a girl from District 12 had scored an eleven. Maybe she had done something to anger the Game Makers, maybe they were trying to make her a target. From the grumbling of the people around her in the main square it was clear that it had worked, they were angry at her score, furious even and calling for her blood. Not that they had much to say in the matter, it was all up to Cato and the rest of the careers. Briar wondered if he would decide to make her an ally or if he would hunt her down and kill her. Briar tried to think of what she would do, but she couldn't decide. With a score that high it would be smart to try to become allies, but what exactly had she done to get that score? Could she be trusted? The fact that she had volunteered for her sister made Briar think that she could be trusted; but that very same sister was probably a big motivator to win the Games. With a high training score and a motivator like that the girl from 12 could be very dangerous.

That night when Briar went to sleep she had nightmares about the girl from 12 killing Cato just so that she could go home to her sister. She woke up shaking and crying and praying that Cato and the rest of the Careers were smart enough to kill the girl as soon as they could. She spent the day in their field before walking back to the main square so that she could watch the interviews. The interviews were probably the only part of the Games that Briar actually enjoyed. It gave everyone one last chance to see the Tributes for what they really were: teenagers, happy teenagers who, in theory, had their whole lives ahead of them. That wasn't necessarily true, but Briar was able to pretend it was, to pretend that the next day these twenty-four kids wouldn't be dropped into an arena and forced to kill each other. She couldn't find her family, but she did find Gunnar who smiled at her and gestured for her to stand next to him. "How are you holding up?" he asked, glancing down at her with a kind smile.

"I'm fine," she said, forcing a smile onto her lips before turning to look at the crowd around her. "I mean, the days are hard and the nights are even worse, but I haven't spent the night at your house since the first night. And it'll be over soon. Usually the Games only last about a week to a week and a half. Cato will be home soon, I just have to wait until then." She turned to look back at the younger boy and saw that he was raising his eyebrows in her direction as if he didn't really believe what she was saying. She sighed, "So I'm not fine," she said, shaking her head again, "but I will be. Cato is going to be fine, he's strong and he's smart, and he has me to come home to."

"And who wouldn't survive with that kind of motivation?" Gunnar asked with a teasing smile on his face. Briar rolled her eyes at him. She thought about telling him that he didn't know what he was talking about because he had never been in love, not like she and Cato had been. But Gunnar was talking again. "And just because I haven't woken up to find you in my brother's bed don't think I haven't noticed that you've been there. You might not be spending the night anymore, but you come by every night. And some of his shirts have gone missing, you wouldn't know anything about that would you?" Briar blushed when she thought of the shirt that was hanging in her closet and the other one that was hidden under her pillow so that she could cuddle with it when she went to sleep. Gunnar chuckled at her red cheeks, "He'll love knowing that you were stealing his shirts so that you could smell him at your house when he gets back," he said softly.

Briar nodded but didn't say anything in return as the screen lit up and the Capitol symbol appeared, the interviews were about to begin.

Gunnar laughed at the frown that appeared on Briar's face when the girl from District 1 walked onto the stage, her dress was gold and see-through. He seemed to guess Briar's thoughts before she even recognized them. "Don't worry," he whispered, bending down so that no one else could hear him. "My bet is that Cato didn't even notice, you know that he's always only had eyes for you." Briar nodded, even before they had started dating Cato had never really seemed interested in anyone, it was only after they had started dating that he pointed out that it had always been her and that she was too blind to notice. The boy from District 1 wasn't really memorable, but he seemed brutal. Clove surprised Briar, she was more bubbly than Briar had probably ever seen her, a play to appear friendly and gain sponsors.

And then Cato appeared. And once again Briar's breath caught. Gunnar reached out and slipped his arm around her waist to steady her and keep her grounded as she took a step forward as if, by getting closer to the screen she would be able to keep his image there forever. He looked so beautiful and carefree as he sat himself down in the chair and smiled at the audience. Caesar wasted no time before getting in to a tough subject, "When I was watching the Reapings I couldn't help but notice that Clove, the other Tribute from your District, volunteered for another girl, Briar Greenlaw. While that's not rare, they way you reacted was," he turns to look at the audience for a moment, "was I the only one who noticed the way he touched the girl's arm as he walked past her toward the stage?" The cheer from those in the Capitol, and even those in the main square in front of her, told Briar that Caesar had not been the only one to notice. He nodded before turning back to Cato, "Am I wrong in assuming that she is something special to you?"

Briar could see what Caesar was doing, Cato had already proved that he was strong and deadly, now the interviewer was giving him a chance to show the more human side of him. To appeal to the more emotional sponsors. Cato seemed to realize the same thing because instead of brushing off the question as Briar had expected him to he nodded. "Briar Patch," he said softly, the smile that he only used for her appearing on his lips for a moment before he focused again. He had said her nickname quietly but not quietly enough that those in the audience hadn't heard it if their cries of _aww_ were any indicator. "Bri and I have been together for about three years."

Caesar nodded, "Were you glad when young Clove volunteered to take her place?" he asked, "When you realized that she would not be going to the Capitol with you?"

Because Briar knew him so much better than those around her, knew the lines of his face and his facial expressions she knew that Cato had decided it was time to stop being sentimental before he opened his mouth. She braced herself, waiting for the words that she was sure would break her heart if she hadn't known that it was all part of his tough act. "I think we both were," he said with a nod before he continued, "I think that we were both thrilled when we realized we weren't faced with the challenge of killing each other." The gasp from the audience was enough to tell her that they hadn't expected that. Gunnar glanced at her to make sure she was okay, she nodded at him, Cato had warned her about this very thing. She was fine.

Caesar looked surprised, "You two would have tried to kill each other?" he asked.

Cato nodded, "What it comes down to is that only one Tribute survives these Games. We would have been allies in the beginning, but as the number of Tributes lessened we would have realized that there was only one way that one of us could go home - one of us would have to die. It's just easier this way, as I imagine her death would be the only kill I would regret." Briar nodded, it was smart move. This way the sponsors would know that he wouldn't get emotionally attached to any of his allies, they would know that he was a smart bet because he would have a clear, level head throughout the Games.

Caesar nodded, "So you're in it to win it?" he asked.

Cato nodded again, "It's what the Games are about," he said as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's all I know," he turned his face so that he was looking directly into the camera, making eye contact with everyone who was viewing the interviews on television, making eye contact with Briar. "I'm here to bring honor, glory, and pride to my District," he said, a soft smile resting on his lips. "And the only way I can do that is to win." Briar smiled at that because she knew what he was really meant. _I love you, Briar, and I will come home to you_.

And then Caesar was wishing Cato luck and shaking his hand before sending him offstage. Briar wanted to yell, to protest. There was no way that that was three minutes, it had been too short. She shook her head, she wanted Cato back on the screen, she needed him back on the screen. She wasn't ready to say goodbye to him yet. It was too soon. She hadn't realized she was crying until Gunnar had rotated her so that he was hugging her and her face was buried in his shirt. He knew that she wouldn't want those around her to know that she was crying, she'd have to thank him for that later. He leaned his head down so that he could whisper in her ear, "Come on," he said softly, "let's just go. No body will notice."

Briar shook her head and lifted one of her hands so that she could brush the tears out of her eyes. "No," she said firmly. "They will notice. And I need to be here. I can handle it. Let go of me." Gunnar looked as though he didn't believe her, but he did as she asked and let go of her. Briar blinked away any more remaining tears before she turned back to the screen to watch the rest of the interviews. They flew by quickly now that she didn't care about the Tributes being interviewed, only a few things standing out in her mind.

Districts 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 slip by without gaining any of her attention. She noticed the crippled boy from District 10 and her heart broke a bit, he wasn't going to last long in the arena and she could only hope that whoever killed him had some mercy and didn't draw it out. She wasn't okay with the killing and the blood already and the last thing she wanted to see was the painful murder of a boy who could hardly defend himself.

Both the Tributes from District 11 caught her interest. The girl was small, couldn't have been more than thirteen. Her training score of seven had been impressive considering her size. And her confidence in her ability to evade capture was contagious. The boy was different, at six and a half feet tall he seemed to have realized that he was more intimidating if he didn't talk. He didn't return Caesar's banter like the rest of the Tributes had and only answered the questions he was asked with a _yes_, _no_, or utter silence.

And then it was District 12 and Briar was paying rapt attention again. The girl would be first and Briar wondered if she would reveal how she had gotten an eleven during training. Despite the high training score the girl, it turned out, was rather unimpressive. She seems confused by Caesar's first question and then begins to talk about food. And then Caesar directs his next question towards her costume for the opening ceremony and she begins talking about her clothes and twirling. Briar watched the interview without really hearing what was said, she was too busy trying to figure out the girl's plan, besides the small bit about her sister she didn't come off as particularly memorable, she highlighted her stylist, every District would want him after this year, but she came off as a ditz. And ditzes didn't get elevens for training scores.

Her counterpart, Peeta, was the complete opposite. He was adorable, endearing, self-depreciating, even though Briar knew that Peeta was the enemy she found herself wanting this humble, self-conscious boy to survive. She shook her head, no matter how sweet the boy was he wouldn't survive in the arena. And then he threw a wrench into the works by announcing that he loved the girl from District 12. Briar's eyes snapped wide, what was this boy thinking? She could understand talking about someone important to you to soften the hearts of the sponsors, but to admit to loving someone who was going to be in the arena with you was suicide. At least that's what she told herself to keep her from wondering what would have happened if Clove hadn't volunteered to take her place as Tribute.

Caesar looked thrilled as he ended the interviews, these were by far the most interviews he had done in several years. Briar grimaced when she realized that he was probably ecstatic at Cato's soft moment, little Rue's endearing interview, Peeta's heartbreaking confession. He had done an excellent job at almost forcing the audience to fall in love with all of the Tributes. She'd be impressed if it weren't so despicable and she wasn't so disgusted.

-.-.-.-.-

The morning of the Games dawned brighter and earlier than Briar wanted it to. Briar laid in bed playing with the idea of watching the Games from the comfort of her own home, but she knew that she wouldn't, she'd be out in the Square if only to show everyone in the District that she was as strong as Cato trusted her to be. The Districts watched the first day of the Games as they happened. That didn't mean that it didn't give the Game Makers time to edit the footage. The fight at the Cornucopia always took at least two hours longer than the actual time. The Game Makers would replay every death from multiple angles, they would bring in past Victors to discuss tactics, etc. And while they were broadcasting that they would edit the new footage, deciding what would be seen and what would be trashed. By the end of the day they would only know who had made it out of the blood bath and the Game Makers would pick up the footage the next morning, showing which Tributes made it through the night and slowly catching the rest of the nation up. For the most part they would watch live, but they would always be at least an hour behind due to the replays which gave them editing time. In previous years Briar had had no problem with this delay, but this year was different. This year the delay meant that she would have to wake up every morning and go to the main square to see if anyone had heard any rumors about how many canons had been fired over night.

At nine in the morning Briar and her family left the house for the main square. The Games would start at half past nine and her mother wanted to ensure that they had good seats. Briar could have cared less about where their seats were as long as she was able to see Cato, but she humored her mother because it was easier than disagreeing with her. The crowd didn't part for them that day, her mother didn't like the change, but Briar managed to give a grateful smile to everyone who caught her eye that didn't move out of her way. Things were finally going back to normal. Finally her mother picked a good spot near the front and her father and brothers busied themselves with setting up the seats. Her mother happily sat down in the first chair that was ready, Briar hardly noticed what was going on until Griffin gently pushed her backwards into a chair that had been set up behind her. "Sit," he commanded in a gentle tone before setting up a chair for himself right next to her.

Within no time at all the Capitol symbol had appeared on the screen and it faded to show them the arena. The platforms that will soon hold the Tributes were placed in a circle around the Cornucopia, the giant golden horn that was shaped like a cone held all sorts of weapons, food, and survival tools. Briar looked at it for a moment, not noticing that the Tributes were being launched, they had sixty seconds to take in their surroundings before the Games began, she wondered how many non-Career Tributes would lose their lives at the Cornucopia, how many would be smart enough to get away. Her eyes swept over the rest of the arena, the Tributes and the Cornucopia were in the middle of a clearing of hard, packed dirt and grass. There was a lake, woods, and a drop off that led to a strange grassy field surrounding it, those that ran would have plenty of places to hide. She still hadn't noticed that the Tributes were now in the arena until Seneca Crane's voice rang out, "Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!"

Her eyes instantly snapped back to the Tributes, looking for Cato, he wasn't hard to find, aside from Thresh he was the tallest Tribute, and he had been positioned perpendicular with the opening of the Cornucopia. Briar understood that the Game Makers were able to vote for their favorites and it was easy to see that Cato was a big favorite among them as his position would allow him to cut off almost half the Tribute's paths to the Cornucopia if they chose to run in that direction. She forced her eyes away from Cato for the briefest moment to see that the boy from District 1 had been placed directly across from him. She saw his nod to Cato and she knew that they had formed an alliance and they were poised to not only throw themselves into the bloodbath, but to come out victorious. Her gaze landed back on Cato, her brows furrowed as she took in his face, his stance, everything about him, trying to commit him to memory.

As the clock began to countdown the remaining seconds Briar felt as though her entire life flashed in front of her eyes. The funny thing was, she couldn't remember or imagine a time when Cato wasn't part of her life. All of their memories, every single one of them seemed as though they flitted in front of her face, just long enough to taunt her before they disappeared, replaced by a new memory.

"Twenty ... Nineteen ... Eighteen,"

_She was five years old when they had met. She was supposed to be in her room, thinking about what she had done - a punishment from her mother for breaking a family heirloom. But she had climbed out of her window and started to run to the field on the outer edge of the District. About half way there she had heard the most pitiful noise she had ever heard in her life, it was a cross between a bird's song and a human wail. Her trip to the field was completely forgotten as she began to search the edge of the road for whatever was making the noise. It didn't take her long to find it, a small baby Mockingjay, it must have fallen from its nest. She carefully picked it up, smiling to herself as she thought of her mother's protests about, "germs," but her smile quickly slipped away when she realized that the bird's spine had been broken and it was only a matter of time before it died. She didn't even realize that she had started crying._

_That's how he had found her, standing on the side of the road crying with a dying baby bird cradled in her hands. She hadn't even heard him approach until he was standing just behind her shoulder, looking down at the bird in her hands and speaking. "Birds die all the time," he muttered, scooping the bird out of her hands and placing it on the ground. "No use crying about it," he added before he stomped his foot on it, crushing its small skull under his shoe. She had screamed at him, demanding to know why he had done it. He had shrugged and looked at her like he thought she was crazy, "I was putting it out of its misery," he said, lifting his foot off the bird and scraping the bottom of his shoe against the gravel of the road, riding the shoe of any bird parts that may have stuck to it. "It's more humane than what you were doing for it."_

_Briar stared at him with wide eyes that were full of shock. She shook her head and began to walk backwards, a few steps away from him. She didn't even know the boy's name, but she was sure of one thing - he was a monster. "I will never forgive you for this," she said, her voice breaking as silent tears slid down her cheeks and she turned to run away from him._

"Seventeen ... Sixteen ... Fifteen ... Fourteen,"

_The next time she really saw him she was eight years old. Sure, she had seen him around the market and at school and in the main square at the Reapings but they had never gotten close enough to each other to talk. But that afternoon when she ran to the field, hiding from her brothers who had been teasing her about her fear of the Reapings she saw him, standing next to a tree on the outer edge. She made to turn around and walk away, but he noticed her, "Bird girl!" he called to her as he ran toward her._

_That made her angry, he couldn't kill the bird and then call her bird girl. She didn't like that, so when he finally got close enough to her she made sure that he knew how angry she was, by punching him in the stomach. She had expected him to be angry with her once he had recovered, but once he was done gasping in pain he looked down at her and smiled, "You didn't run away," he pointed out unnecessarily. Of course she hadn't run away._

_She nodded, "My daddy tells me not to run away from people, they think think you're weak when you do that," she said softly._

_"Trust me," he said , hand still rubbing what would probably be a huge bruise by the next morning. "With a punch like that, no one will think that you're weak." Briar gave him a look that clearly said that she was unimpressed with his compliment. He held out his hand to her, "Cato," he said softly._

_She surprised him by allowing her smaller hand to slip into his, "Briar," she whispered, "And I still hate you."_

_Cato had smiled at the fire in the small girl in front of her before he jerked his head toward the tree he had been standing next to, "Can I show you something?"_

"Thirteen ... Twelve ... Eleven,"

_He had buried the bird. He had buried the bird that he had killed in the field. And the nine year old boy went to the tree it was buried next to once a week to make sure the dead bird wasn't lonely and to tell it about the girl that had cried when it died. That had endeared him to Briar more than anything else he could have done. They became friends soon after that, and within a year they were practically inseparable. When she was eleven and Cato was sent to the training center she had been heartbroken, she would still get to see him over the weekends and on some afternoons, but they would no longer be going to the same school and she would no longer be able to count on seeing him everyday. She had tried not to let him know how much that bothered her, but he knew her so well that he was able to read it in her face. He didn't say anything though until the last night, they were sitting in their field, Briar was making a crown of daisies to wear in her hair before he finally spoke up. "Why are you so worried about me going to Training, Bri?" he asked._

_Briar thought about lying to him, about making up some excuse, but he knew her too well for that, he would see though any lie in a minute. She sighed and got ready to tell him the truth, preparing for him to laugh at her once he found out why she was so scared. "I'm afraid that you'll find a new best friend," she said softly. "I think you'll find someone that you like spending time with more than me. And then I'll never see you again. You're better at making friends with me, and if you make new ones then I will be all alone, forever." She closed her eyes and waited for him to start laughing, but he never did._

_She flinched when she felt his fingers slip under her chin, but she allowed him to lift her face and opened her eyes to make eye contact with his blue ones. He wasn't smiling, his face was intense and worried. "You know that you're my best friend don't you?" he asked. She nodded. "Then don't you know that I could never stop being your friend?" he asked. "Best friends don't stop being friends, I'm not going to find someone I like better. We're best friends, Briar Patch, and we always will be."_

_"Always?" Briar asked, her brown eyes lightening with hope._

_Cato gave her a determined nod, "Always."_

"Ten ... Nine ... Eight,"

_Briar loved the training school more than she had expected. She had thought that it would be tough, it was. She had thought that the kids would be mean, some were. She had thought that the instructors were going to be hard on her, they were. She had thought that she was going to be horrible at it, she wasn't. She was good at it, and the more training she received the more she realized that she was good at almost everything she tried. It's not that anything was particularly easy for her, except the knives - she was naturally talented with those, it was that she had a great motivator - her best friend who wanted her to be the absolute best she could be. And so she was, and within a matter of time it wasn't just the instructors or Cato who realized it._

_"You're really good with the bow and arrow," Grandis Ivory, a fifteen year old boy, complimented as he and Briar waited in line for their next training activity, hand-to-hand combat. "Like better than anyone I've ever met."_

_Fourteen year old Briar, smiled when she heard Cato scoff from behind her. She shrugged, "It's just practice," she said simply. "Anyone could be as good as me, they just have to want to put in the time to practice. When I first picked up the bow I couldn't shoot the front side of a building. But I was determined."_

_Grandis nodded, "Well maybe once we get out of here this afternoon you could come over to my house and help me practice?" he asked._

_Briar shrugged again, "Why not?" she asked, not coming up with a reason as to why she shouldn't agree to it. Grandis smiled at her and nodded before he was called away to spar with the winner of the last match. Briar watched him for a moment before Cato made a disapproving noise from behind her, she turned to look at him with raised eyebrows, "What?" she asked him. Cato simply shook his head. She sighed, "Cato," she said softly, "What's wrong?"_

_"Are you really going to go over there and 'practice' with him?" Cato asked, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the word. Briar shrugged and told him that it wasn't any of his business, but yes she probably would because she couldn't think of a reason not to. "I could give you a reason," Cato muttered darkly, but he never got to because at that moment Briar was called forward to spar with the winner, Grandis had apparently been beaten._

_She spent the rest of the afternoon trying to catch Cato's eye, trying to talk to him and have him tell her why she shouldn't practice with Grandis, but it was as though he was avoiding her. That made her angry so she waited until they were let out and then as she was walking down the road away from the training center she picked up a rock and threw it with deadly aim at the back of Cato's head, smiling when it hit its target. Cato cursed and turned around to glare at her, it softened a bit when he realized that she had been the one to hit him, but it was still a glare. "What the hell, Bri?" he growled, as he stomped closer to her._

_"Why the hell shouldn't I go over to Grandis' house?" she asked him angrily. Cato just rolled his eyes and shook his head before he told her that she could do whatever she wanted, that it didn't matter to him. And then he turned around and began to walk away from her. "Bullshit," she called after him. "I know you, Cato. Something's wrong, just give me one reason!"_

_"Because I don't like him!" he growled, turning around and glaring fiercely at her. "I don't like him because he likes you!" That shocked Briar, she hadn't expected that at all. Cato caught her surprise and let out a dark chuckle. "And of course you didn't notice, because you never notice anything," he muttered. "You never do."_

_Briar picked up on his tone, but she didn't know what to make of it, she chose instead to focus on his statement about Grandis. "So what if he likes me?" she asked, walking closer to Cato. "What's that matter to you?"_

_"Because you're mine!" Cato growled, his voice suddenly possessive as he turned so that he was fully facing the small girl in front of him. For a moment Briar thought that Cato was being the possessive friend that she had been when he first started going to the training center. She was about to tell him to stop being a possessive idiot when he started talking. "You're supposed to be mine. You're mine and you always will be!" And then he stepped closer to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her forcefully into his chest and tilting her chin so that he could press a hard kiss onto her lips. "You're mine," he growled as he pulled away from her. And Briar, breathless with excitement, couldn't find it in herself to argue with him - she didn't even want to._

"Seven ... Six ... Five,"

_"Bri, what the hell are you talking about?" Cato asked, looking up at his angry girlfriend from his spot on the couch. "What girl am I cheating on you with? And when do I find the time to cheat on you? We're together all the time we're either at the training together or we're hanging out at each other's houses. When could I possibly cheat on you? And why would I want to?"_

_Briar glared at Cato, angry at him for breaking her heart. She had trusted him not to hurt her and he had turned around and done just that. They had only been dating for a little more than a year and he was already bored of her. "Fawna Herriot," she said, her heart clenching when she saw the look of recognition dawn on Cato's face. It would have almost been easier on her if he had just been screwing around on her with girls that he didn't care about, girls that he would never see again, girls whose names he didn't even know. It bothered her more that he knew their names. "Sounds familiar doesn't it?" she whispered, taking a step away from him._

_"Who told you that?" Cato asked, not denying or even answering her question. Briar scoffed and took another step backwards. That was all the answer she needed. "Bri," Cato said softly, standing up from the couch. "I need you to tell me who told you that I was sleeping with Fawna."_

_"The funny thing is that no one did," Briar said softly, countering every one of his steps closer to her with a step away from him. She flinched at the soft, broken quality to her voice; she wanted to yell at him and scream, but it seemed as though all of the fight had left her. "Fawna had hinted at me that she knew something about you that I didn't, that she had a secret. You were the one who said that you had slept with her." She smiled grimly at the regretful look that filled Cato's blue eyes. "And even if someone had told me, the best thing about a break-up is that I don't care what you need from me anymore, I don't have to give it to you."_

_"You're breaking up with me?" Cato asked in surprise, this time it was him whose voice cracked with emotion. Briar nodded and turned so that her back was facing him and she headed toward the door. "Briar you can't!" Cato yelled, not caring who heard him as he watched her move toward the door. "You have to listen to me!"_

_"I don't have to do anything anymore," Briar called over her shoulder as she walked out of the door. She glared up at the grey sky when she felt the raindrops hitting her skin. Of course it was raining. But instead of heading to the warm safety of her home as everyone else in the village had done she took off running for the one place she truly felt safe, their field. When she got there she was disappointed, it didn't feel the same - it didn't feel safe anymore, it didn't make her feel happy. She realized that those feelings she had come to associate with the field only existed there because Cato was there. Without him the field was just a patch of land with really tall grass. She finally allowed the tears to fall from her eyes as she turned around to head home and came face to face with Cato._

_He was soaked and his chest was heaving because he had run as fast as he could after her. She glared at him and tried to sidestep him but he countered her movement, and again when she tried to walk around him from the other side. She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest when she realized that he wasn't going to let her pass him until she listened to him. "Yes," he said with a nod, "Fawna tried to get me to sleep with her, but I swear to you I never did. I never would. I wouldn't want to cheat on you, Bri."_

_Briar stared at him with her eyebrows raised before she dropped both her brows and her arms, all the anger leaving her and confusion taking its place. She could always tell when Cato was lying to her, hiding something from her; and if she had been paying better attention to him back at his house she would have noticed it there - he was telling the truth. "Then what secret was she talking about?" she asked, softly._

_"When I told her that I wouldn't sleep with her she asked me why," Cato said, talking just loud enough that Briar could hear him over the pounding rain. "I told her that I couldn't because I ... because I loved you."_

_"You what?" Briar asked, not daring to believe that she had heard him correctly as she took a step closer to him._

_"I love you!" he yelled._

_"You what?" Briar asked again, a smile spreading across her lips to let him know that she was playing with him now._

_He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her in and pressing a hard kiss onto her forehead. "I love you, Briar Greenlaw. I love you, I love you, I love you. I even love you despite all the dramatics you pulled this afternoon. I love you." Briar smiled up at him before she wrapped her arms around his middle and buried her face in his chest. He smiled down at her and kissed the back of her head several times before gently pushing her away from his body enough that he could look into her sparkling brown eyes, he hoped that those were happy tears in them now. "You know," he prompted with a chuckle and a soft smile. "This is where you would usually tell me that you love me too."_

_Briar giggled at him and shook her head before she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his chin, "I love you too, Cato," she said, her smile widening. "Always will."_

_"Always will," Cato said with a nod and a smile. "Always will."_

"Four ... Three ... Two,"

_"So you're not going to start planning our wedding now are you?" Cato asked, pressing a kiss on the top of Briar's head as his hand ran up and down her spine, tracing searing patterns into her flushed skin._

_Briar glanced up at him from where her head rested on his chest and raised her eyebrows. They had just had sex for the first time and now they were laying on Cato's bed in a tangle of limbs and sheets trying to cool down and cuddle at the same time, two things that honestly didn't really work together, not that either of them were complaining. The one time Briar had tried to move away from him Cato had growled low in his throat and told Briar that if she knew what was good for her she would stop trying to move away from him. She rolled her eyes, "Please," she said, smiling up at the blonde man who had his arms wrapped around her. "I'm not the type of girl to go around planning my wedding to you just because you were the first man I slept with."_

_Cato smiled at her and squeezed his arms, bringing her body closer to his, "Good," he said, pressing another kiss onto the top of her head. "I was hoping that you would plan your wedding to me because I was the first man you ever loved."_

_Briar smiled at him, "About that ..." she said, letting her voice drop off at the end. Cato pretending to glare at her before he moved his fingers to her sides and fluttered them, knowing that it would drive her crazy. Briar began to squeal and flail at the tickling. "I was joking! I was joking!" she managed to gasp out once Cato had finally stopped tickling her. "Of course you were the first man I ever loved, you were smart enough to get me when I was young. You're all I ever knew."_

_Cato rolled his eyes, "How romantic," he muttered._

_Briar laughed, "You know that you're the only one for me," she said softly. Cato nodded and when she tilted her head for a kiss on the lips he gave it to her. Briar sighed contentedly as she shifted in his arms until her head was resting on his chest again. She waited for a few comfortable minutes until Cato's breathing had started to even out, telling her that he was almost asleep. "How do you feel about a summer wedding?" she asked; half joking, half serious._

_Cato chuckled and buried his face in her hair, pressing kisses into it as he stopped chuckling. "That sounds perfect," he said softly, readjusting his arms as he did so. "You could wear daisies in your hair like you did when we were younger."_

_"We could do it out by the tree," Briar continued, a soft smile resting on her lips._

_"At sunset," Cato said with a nod, "I've always loved the way you look at sunset."_

_Briar giggled as she rolled over so that she could rest her chin on Cato's chest and look into his bright, happy blue eyes. "So you're not going to start planning our wedding now are you?" she parroted at him. Cato's only reply was a chuckle and another kiss before he tucked her head back into his chest, tightened his arms around her and told her to rest._

"One."

The gong rings and the Games have begun.

* * *

Author's Note:  
And would you look at me, I planned to get to the end of the Games and I barely make it to the beginning.  
But what do you guys think? Is it any good? Did you like this chapter? Did you like the memories?  
**REVIEW TO LET ME KNOW**.  
Seriously, I love reviews because they tell me what I'm doing right, what I might be doing wrong, and what you would like to see more of.  
It's honestly in your best interest to review.  
Thank you to those of you that reviewed on the last chapter (I would love to hear from you again) and thank you to those of you that added this story to your alerts or favorites! That makes me happy.  
And you know what made my day? **Being added to a community!**Seriously, that made me so happy to know that someone had liked my story that much to do that, so double thanks for that.  
To those of you that are hoping that Cato will survive in this story, I'm sorry to say that I'm playing this one pretty cannon in that he's going to die (I know, I don't really want him to die either, I may have fallen in love with _my_ Cato.) But **Gold Rain Morning** gave me a suggestion to write an AU after this story is done in which Cato survives. I am, at the moment, willing to play around with that idea. Is that something you guys would be interested in?  
Tell me if you are! (Either **review**, send me a **private message**, or I will create a **poll** before I post the next chapter and you guys can let me know.)  
Thanks again for reading this chapter.  
I'll see you back here soon.  
Hugs and kisses,  
Chloe Jane.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hunger Games_ or any of the recognizable characters. I do however, own Briar Greenlaw, so do what you will with that.

Notes: So I'm going to have to elongate this story again ... I keep saying that I'm going to get to the end during the next chapter and I keep not even getting close. But I don't think that's anything you mind? **Do you mind?**  
Anyway, this is the next **14** pages of the story, I hope you enjoy. And don't forget to check out the **POLL** on my profile page.

Check out the author's note at the end because I need everyone's opinion on something.

* * *

The first hour or so of the Games is hectic, confusing, and fast paced. The Game Makers don't even try to set off the cannons until the blood bath is over. The camera view keeps switching, trying to give the viewers a chance to see every gory, bloody detail while also keeping track of those who were smart enough to run away from the Cornucopia and the Careers who were fighting to control it. The first death is the boy Tribute from District 9, the square erupted in cheers when they realized that it had been Clove and some knives that she had grabbed from the Cornucopia that had killed him, Briar didn't cheer, couldn't even force herself to, but she managed a smile when she realized that at least Clove would be safe through the bloodbath, no one was going to be able to kill her when she had those knives in her hands. She assumed that the Game Makers would switch to another camera view now, but they didn't, they stayed focused on Clove as she prepared to throw another knife. Briar was confused until the view switched and she saw the girl from District 12 running away with the backpack that had just been in the dead boy's hands.

Briar had never been a fan of the bloody deaths in the Games, not like many people in her District were. Most years she found herself wishing that she didn't have to watch, that the Capitol would just put an end to the horrible tradition. She never found herself wishing that any one of the Tributes would die. But this year was different; Cato was in the Games this year, this year every death meant that he was one step closer to coming home, this year every living Tribute was a threat, this year she found herself wishing for their deaths. She hadn't realized it when Clove killed the boy from 9, because he hadn't posed any threat to Cato; but this girl - Katniss Everdeen from District 12 was a threat, a big one. Briar crossed her fingers as Clove threw the knife, praying that it would end the girl. And for once, her sigh when the knife didn't meet its mark and the girl began to run away wasn't from relief, but rather regret. She didn't know what Katniss had done to get an eleven in training, but she guessed that the girl was dangerous, and probably one of the biggest threats to Cato in the arena.

As if to mock her hope that Clove would kill her the cameras followed after the girl as she ran safely and unchased into the woods before they returned to the battles going on in front of the Cornucopia. It seemed that Griffin had noticed her regretful sigh when Clove had failed to kill Katniss because he turned his head to look at his sister, his brows furrowed in confusion as he watched her eyes dart over the large screen in front of them, trying to catch sight of Cato to make sure that he was alright. "This is different," he said softly, glancing at the small brunette to see if she had heard him. The only indication that she was listening was the smallest shrug of her shoulders. He nodded, "You're not usually one to wish for the deaths of Tributes," he said, even softer so that no one around them could hear him. "Especially not ones who volunteered as Tribute for someone they loved."

That stung, it made Briar realize that sooner than later she was going to be hoping for Clove's death. She was going to hope that someone killed the girl who volunteered for her, the girl who saved her from having to go into this horror herself. She swallowed the lump in her throat and glanced at her older brother for the briefest second before she turned back to the screen, "Yeah well, my boyfriend isn't usually in the Games, now is he?" She waited for Griffin to answer her question and when he didn't she nodded, "And that changes everything," she breathed softly. "Absolutely everything." And then as if speaking about him was all she needed to do the camera's focus landed on Cato. Briar's breath caught in her throat.

If she had ever doubted that Cato didn't belong in the Games that doubt died with the boy from District 4. Cato was in his element, and as brutal as it was he looked gorgeous, even covered in some unknown Tribute's blood. She watched with wide eyes as he snapped the neck of the smaller Tribute, she had seen this move plenty of times on dummies at the training center, but this was the first time she had ever seen it done to a real person. She swallowed when she realized that she was in aww of him, of the way he moved. The Game Makers replayed the death from a different angle and Briar ate it up, she watched in awe as the lean muscles in Cato's arms moved under his tanned skin. Despite the blood and the horrors going on around him Briar was sure that he had never looked so beautiful. They replayed the kill from one more angle, there was now no doubt in Briar's mind that he was a favorite of the Game Makers - he was getting more camera time than anyone else in the bloodbath, and as she watched his strong arms wrap around the boy's body she was drawn into a memory of those very same arms wrapping around her under very different circumstances.

_"Aww Bri, you look so adorable," Cato taunted from a few feet in front of her. The two were sparring at the training center, demonstrating to some of the smaller kids various ways to disarm an opponent during the Games if they were ever sent to the arena. Briar was the one with a weapon while Cato was charged with the duty of disarming her. So far, neither of them had had any luck, Briar was unable to pin Cato to the floor and he had been unsuccessful in taking away her knife. He had been, however, very successful in taunting her in front of the younger kids. He turned his head to look at the group of them now, "She thinks she's all big and bad with that knife, but the truth is she's no good with it in close combat." He turned back to look at her, "It's only a matter of time, Babe."_

_Briar rolled her eyes and shook her head, he was an idiot. They had agreed to keep their relationship a secret from the instructors at the training center, but if he kept this up he was going to give their secret away. She glanced over shoulder at the instructors that were watching the fight, they were laughing at the two of them, they had heard his comment, but they had assumed that it was simply part of the taunt. She breathed a sigh of relief before she started to turn toward her opponent again, but that split second where she wasn't paying full attention to him was all Cato needed to make his move. "That's a cheap move, Cato," Briar gasped out as her back thudded hard against Cato's chest._

_He chuckled as she tried to maneuver her hand so that she could stab him in the stomach, it wouldn't hurt him, they were both wearing thin body arm that mimicked skin and the knife was blunt - the only thing that would happen was a noise that would alert everyone to the stab, the spar would be over, Cato would fail. He grabbed her wrist and pulled it away from their bodies, applying just enough pressure to her wrist to hurt, pulling just enough to make it uncomfortable until she dropped the knife to the floor with a thud. "Fair fighting doesn't win in the arena," he whispered in her ear before he kicked the knife away from them._

_"You don't have to tell me twice," Briar muttered before she stomped her foot as hard as she could on top of Cato's and twisted out of his surprised grip. She allowed herself a soft giggle as she moved back toward her knife, but before she had gotten to it Cato had wrapped his arms around her, one across her chest directly underneath her clavicle and another across her stomach and before she knew what was happening he had pushed her to the ground and landed on top of her, she groaned when her head thudded against the mat. "Could've been a bit more gentle," she muttered, glaring up into the playful blue eyes of her boyfriend and would-be attacker. "Stepping on your foot won't give you a concussion, dropping my head on the ground might."_

_Cato smiled softly at her, reaching out a hand to gently brush a strand of her hair out of her face and behind her ear. She watched as his gaze followed the strand of hair, once it was tucked safely behind her ear his gaze darted to her eyes before flickering down to her lips, back to her eyes, and once more lingering on her lips. She shook her head softly as he began to lean down closer to her, she thought he was going to kiss her but at the last moment he diverted his lips so that they were near her ear, "Remind me to apologize profusely when we're at my house this afternoon," he breathed, allowing his tongue to subtly slip out from between his lips and lick around the shell of her ear. Briar bit her lip to keep from moaning at the feeling. Cato grinned and jumped away from her so that he was standing above her, holding out a hand to help her up. "Better luck next time, Sweetheart," he said sarcastically, loud enough that the instructors and the younger kids could hear him, when she slipped her hand in his and allowed him to pull her off the mat._

She stared at the beautiful man on the screen as the people of her District cheered for him. but her mind could not connect how the two men were the same. She had always known that Cato could be deadly, she had seen him take down opponents in the training center many times, but they always got back up when he was done with them. He was usually the one that helped them up with a smile and a friendly sounding apology on his lips. But there was no smile, no apology - at least not one that she could hear, and the boy from District four never got back up again. Despite the satisfaction in knowing that Cato was closer to coming home to her Briar couldn't help but feel a sadness for what the Games had done to her Cato, for the monster they had forced him to become. She swallowed another lump in her throat as the camera's focus shifted to the death of another Tribute and reminded herself that she had wanted this, wished for this. A little more than a week ago she had demanded that he become this monster just so that he could come home to her.

What she hadn't seemed to realize at the moment in Cato's prep room, what she had refused to allow herself to see was that Cato coming home to her would mean that twenty-three other teenagers would never go home to their families and loved ones again. She stood up from her chair and shook her head at the screen, she didn't care if people saw the tears in her eyes or heard her choked back sobs, she needed to get out of there, she needed to leave. She had never wanted this.

-.-.-.-.-

She was surprised that the Peace Keepers let her go. She had figured that since watching the Games was mandatory they would be all over forcing her to stay in the Main Square and watch. But most of them didn't even seem to notice that she was leaving. One of them looked up at her and nodded, not telling her to get back to her seat, not insisting that he follow her back to her house to watch it there - he simply nodded and turned his face back to the screen as if he hadn't even noticed her. She looked closely at him and realized that he was the Peace Keeper who had given her five minutes with Cato before he left instead of three. She shrugged, he must have had a soft spot in his heart for young love. She didn't stay to question his decision, she nodded in return and quickly ran from the square, heading for the one place where she would be safe from the images of the Game and safe from the feelings welling up inside of her, their field.

Her eldest brother found her hours later curled up under the tree practically comatose. She had cried out all of her tears, she was tired and yet she couldn't get to sleep, she was simply staring at the ground. He had expected her to jump or at least move when she heard his approach but she seemed to be in shock, she didn't acknowledge him when he stood in front of her, or when he called her name, or even when he picked her up in his arms and began to carry her back to their house. Once they were on their street she came to just enough to ask about the Games, "How many?" she asked in a voice so soft that he had to read her lips to understand what she was asking.

"Eleven," he said softly, and when he realized that that was not really what she was asking he told her what she really wanted to know. "He's fine," he with a gentle nod and a soft kiss to the top of her head. "He's okay." Briar nodded and snuggled closer to her brother's chest. She had so many questions to ask him, but she was just too tired. And Cato was all she desperately needed to know. Eleven Tributes dead on the first day was good news, it meant that his odds were getting better and that he would be home sooner. But there were still thirteen left. When she thought of the other thirteen she began to regret leaving the main square. Did someone kill the crippled kid from 10? What about small Rue? Was Thresh alive and a threat? Or had he allied with the Careers? What about the lovesick boy from 12, was he alive? And the girl from 12, Katniss? Was she alive? That was probably the most pressing question, but she couldn't find the words to ask him.

And she realized that she didn't really want to know the answer. Because, at this moment she could go to bed pretending that the girl from 12 is dead. And then in the morning she can wake up and watch the recaps from yesterday to find out what happened during and after the bloodbath. By the time her family heads out to the main square to watch tomorrow's events she'll be all caught up as to where everyone is and who is still alive. She ignores the grim feeling of satisfaction she feels in her stomach when she thinks that the girl from 12 is dead. It's a good thought because something about that girl made her nervous. She didn't know much about the girl, but she had a feeling that she wasn't the ditz her interview with Caesar Flickerman made her out to be.

-.-.-.-.-

_"I'm rooting for the girl from 4," Briar said, shaking her head and turning to look at Cato to see if he was as impressed with the girl's performance at the Cornucopia as she was. The girl, Katri Odair had been like a one-woman army at the Cornucopia and then, instead of joining with the other Careers as everyone had expected she grabbed the weapons and food she could carry and walked into the woods. None of the Careers even thought of following her, they were too busy staring after her and wondering what her next move was._

_Cato turned to look at her with raised eyebrows, "She killed Orchid," he pointed out, nodding toward the television screen at the instant replay of Katri spearing the girl from District 2 in the stomach, she turned the spear, opening the gash into a larger wound and pulled it out. "You know Orchid, 4 should be the last Tribute you want to win the Games." His words and his tone told her that he disapproved of her choice, but the look in his eyes clearly said that he had been impressed as well._

_Briar shrugged, "I just think a girl should win," she said nonchalantly. "A boy has won the last three years, it's time for some girls to win. I was hoping it would be Orchid but that plan's out. And this girl is the only other girl who was brave enough to take part in the bloodbath. The girl from 1 just stood on her platform and waited for the rest of the Careers to take care of those too stupid to run to the woods. If that girl wins I'll kill myself."_

_"I won't let you," Cato said, shaking his head as he pressed a kiss onto Briar's cheek and pulled her into his lap. "Because then I would have to kill myself." Briar rolled her eyes, and told him that he was full of crap. He chuckled and kissed the top of her head, "You'd win if you were in the Games," he said, no doubt or humor in his voice. Briar tilted her head so that she could look up at his face to see if he was serious. He nodded, "You would, if you played your cards right and you're smart so you would definitely play your cards right."_

_Briar shrugged her shoulders, "Yeah, but being smart and being good with weapons is only half of the Games. I'd have to not only convince the Game Makers to like me, but I'd have to get potential sponsors to like me too. No Tribute has ever won the Games without support from sponsors. What if I'm not likable enough to do that?"_

_Cato shrugged, "You got me to fall in love with you," he pointed out as if that was the be all, end all of getting people to like you. She smiled up at him and shook her head. He smiled and brushed some hair out of her face, "You'd be able to do it," he said with a nod. "Everyone would love you, maybe even some of the other Tributes which would definitely work to your advantage. But I swear, I might have some trouble forgiving you when you came home if you pretended to like one of the other Tributes in the arena just to survive."_

_"Please," she said, rolling her eyes and giggling as she turned back toward the television so that she could watch the rest of the slow-motion replays. "Pretending to have feelings for someone to get sympathy or support is for those too weak to make it through the Games on their own. I'm not that girl."_

_"I know you're not," Cato said, approval in his tone as he pressed soft, barely there kisses down her neck. "And I love you for it." Briar smiled down at her hands as she waited for him to say something else, she was sure that there was more. He wrapped his arms around her hips and pulled her closer to his chest, squeezing tightly. "Although," he drawled out, "this is different from last year when you told me that if you got sent to the Games you wouldn't kill anyone."_

_Briar rolled her eyes, "I was stupid last year." Cato chuckled and his kisses drifted from her neck to her shoulder blades through the thin fabric of her shirt. "I wouldn't like it," she said defiantly, "I'd hate them for putting me there, I'd hate myself for not being strong enough to refuse to play their Game, but I'd do it." Cato asked her why. She smiled softly as she turned around in his lap so that she was straddling him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Because I have you to come home to, and that's worth whatever I would have to do to get back."_

_Cato smiled at her and tilted his head so that he could press a kiss onto the tip of her nose. "Same to you, Briar Patch," he said with a nod, punctuating his statement with another kiss to her nose, "I'll always come home to you." Briar smiled at him before she told him that she planned to hold him to it._

-.-.-.-.-

"Any rumors about cannons last night?" Briar whispered when she slipped into an open seat next to Gunnar. He chuckled and shook his head before telling her that from what he had heard everyone who had been alive at the end of yesterday's program was still alive now. She nodded, "That's good I guess," she said softly, biting her lip and hating herself for wishing that others had died so that Cato would be closer to coming home.

"You skipped out early yesterday," Gunnar pointed out as the screen turned on and the broadcast began with recaps from the deaths from yesterday. "Anything you need to talk about?" he asked, turning his head to watch Briar as she watched the faces of the eleven dead Tributes flash on the screen. She shook her head.

"I just had to deal with some inner demons," she whispered softly, hoping that Gunnar would realize that she didn't want to talk about it and stop questioning her. He did, he reached out and gave her hand a gentle, comforting squeeze, but didn't ask her any questions. She turned her head to study him for a moment, he knew her better than she had given him credit for. She was about to thank him when the music started, cuing the audience to the new footage that was no being displayed on the screen.

They start with showing clips of the thirteen remaining Tributes so that the Districts can see how their Tributes are doing. Briar was surprised to note that the crippled boy from District 10 is still alive, she had figured that he would have died on the first day, been picked off as easy prey, but he had somehow managed to limp into the woods and hide, not that it seemed that the Careers had done much _hunting_ the night before. They appeared to have been content with the amount of death at the Cornucopia and allowed the surviving Tributes a night off. The other Tributes that were still in the Games were no worry to her except for two, Thresh from District 11 was alive in the field; and Katniss from District 12 had spent the night in a tree. Briar was about to ask Gunnar about the boy from 12, she had seen him run into the bloodbath before she ran away, had he died and she had just missed his picture, when the footage switched to how the Career Tributes had spent their first night in the arena.

As a rule unless something really interesting was happening in another part of the arena the Careers got more screen time than any of the other Tributes. It made sense as they were the ones that had more sponsors and they were the ones with the higher betting stakes. The year before when the girl from District 4, Katri, had abandoned the Careers the Game Makers hadn't been able to decide who should get more screen time. Katri had kept to herself throughout the entire Games, most of the time she hadn't even seemed to be doing anything interesting, but she had slowly worked her way through the arena killing as she went until she had won the Games. She left everyone to wonder why they hadn't paid attention to her the entire time. No doubt the Game Makers would be on the look out for someone like that this year, but as none of the Careers had split away from the pack this year Briar assumed that she would see a lot of Cato throughout the next few days.

What was strange was that they had adopted two boys to their alliance that seemed out of place. The boy Tribute from District 3 and Peeta from 12. Briar turned to look at Gunnar to silently ask him what she had apparently missed while watching the recaps. He chuckled and nodded, "3?" he asked, waiting for her to nod before he gave her an explanation. "They cornered him in the Cornucopia," he whispered, talking softly so as not to disturb anyone watching near them. "Our boy was about to kill him when he screamed that he had something that they needed." Briar raised her eyebrows, silently waiting for him to continue his explanation. "He dug up the mines around the Tribute platforms and they were burying them in the ground around their food all afternoon yesterday. They kept him around afterward because he's the only one who knows how to get to the food and other supplies without blowing it all sky high."

"And the boy from 12?" Briar asked as she watched the group eating beside a fire, not worried about drawing attention to themselves, no one would think of attacking them when their group was so large, at least not on the first night - no one was that desperate yet. "How did he get adopted into the group?"

"They're using him to find the girl from 12," Gunnar whispered back. "He told them that his confession of love was just a trick to get her to trust him. He says that he thinks it worked and that he'll be able to find her and kill her. They didn't want to take him in at first, but Cato insisted, she makes him nervous with that training score and everything. He thinks that the boy is their best bet for finding her before she can do too much damage." Briar nodded, it was a smart plan, as long as the boy from 12 was telling the truth and not trying to play them. She was about to ask something else when her attention was drawn fully to the screen in front of them when someone said her name.

"So tell us about_ Briar Patch_," Marvel, the boy Tribute from District 1, sneered at Cato from across the fire. Just because the Careers formed alliances every year didn't mean that they were friends or even really got along. Briar could tell from Gunnar's whispered accounts from the previous afternoon that Cato seemed to the one calling all the shots. Clove didn't seem to mind and the rest of the Tributes around the fire seemed to just be happy that Cato wasn't snapping their necks but Marvel seemed as though he actually had a problem with playing second to Cato. "She must be something special," he continued, his voice taking on an almost Capitol-esque tone as if he was mimicking one of them, probably Caesar Flickerman.

"You'll be quiet if you know what's good for you," Cato growled, his blue eyes flashing in the firelight as he glared at the smaller boy. "Briar isn't any of your business."

Marvel scowled before opening his mouth, no doubt to continue needling Cato when Clove interrupted him. "Briar's amazing," she said in a flat tone, glancing up from her food to make eye contact with everyone around the fire except for Cato. "I assume she's pretty, my older brother seems to think so," Cato snapped his head around to glare at Clove as if her older brother would understand that the glare and the threat in Cato's eyes was actually meant for him. "And she's smart, tricky even. She could easily kill all of you without a struggle if she were here. She was selected to volunteer as Tribute this year which means that as far as the mentors and the District elders are concerned she is the deadliest girl in our District. She would have won the Games if I hadn't volunteered to take her place."

"Why did you volunteer for her?" the girl from District 1, Glimmer, asked. She turned to sneer at the small brunette, "If she's the deadliest girl in your District then why is she at home watching on television while you're here?" If she planned to get Clove or Cato to reveal how much Briar meant to the District 2 male her plan failed horribly.

Clove shrugged, "I though I could do better," she said, "I know I can do better. You'll see." Briar nodded, she could see the wheels turning in Clove's head. The fifteen-year-old was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for. She understood that one of the ways to get sponsors was to appeal to their emotions and she had done that without making Cato or herself look weak. By telling the other Tributes about Briar and what she was like she was making the sponsors see what Cato had been forced to give up, what he was fighting to return home to even if he didn't say that. And by explaining that she thought she could do better than the girl she had just described as basically unbeatable she had shown them a confidence that would be hard to deny. Even though this had been filmed in the past and the younger brunette couldn't see her, Briar inclined her head to the girl's image on the screen in silent gratitude for looking out for Cato without making the boy feel as though he was being babysat.

-.-.-.-.-

_"Cato! We're going to get in so much trouble! Where are you taking me?" Briar asked as Cato pulled her through the halls of the training school by the hand. He was supposed to be in survival training, but he had shown up behind her in line for knife throwing and had silently dragged her out of the room. She was surprised that no one had seen them go._

_"You need to be quiet!" he whispered as he pulled her into a doorway and pushed her against the doorframe, making them as flat as possible as an instructor walked down the hallway perpendicular with the one they were in now. "We won't get in trouble if you don't get us caught!" Briar shook her head at him, but lifted one of her hands and silently mimicked zipping her lips closed, locking them, and throwing away the key. "Well that's rare," Cato teased as he stepped away from her and grabbed her hand again._

_Briar wanted to ask him where he was bringing her so badly, but she refrained, he didn't need more of a reason to make fun of her. She followed him as he pulled her through the halls, she had assumed that they were headed toward the front doors of the building, but at the last moment he had turned down a small hallway that she had never been in and down a flight of stairs "You can talk again," he said softly. "As long as you're quiet, they don't use this hallway very often."_

_"Where are we going?" Briar asked as soon as her boyfriend had finished talking. "If you had wanted to give me a tour of the training center that could have happened once training was done for the day."_

_"We're skipping," Cato said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and when Briar thought about it he was right. She should have known that they were skipping, but that still didn't answer her questions about where they were going. Cato smiled when they came upon a door to the left of them. "And we're going out," he said as he turned the handle on the door and opened it. Briar smiled when she realized that he had led her to a side door at the training center, one that wasn't watched by staff members, one that they could just walk out of. Cato gave her hand a soft squeeze before he took off running, pulling her behind him. "Last one to our field loses!"_

The rest of the day's broadcast was pretty boring. The Careers were content to stay at their camp by the lake to sort out their supplies and to develop a plan of attack on the other Tributes. Every once in a while the camera's focus would shift to another Tribute, but none of them were doing anything interesting either. Thresh was hunting in his field, the redhead from District 5 was walking through the woods in search of water, Katniss was doing the same thing on the other side of the arena. The crippled boy from 10 had found a cave to hide in, but he didn't have any food or water so he was going to have to venture out of it eventually. It was the girl from 11, Rue that really surprised Briar. She was traveling around the arena through the trees, she had found water, had a bit of food, and was managing to keep tabs on almost all the other Tributes. This girl had deserved more than a seven for a training score.

It was calm and that made Briar nervous. The Game Makers didn't like when things were calm. It wasn't as interesting to watch kids struggle to survive as it was to watch them kill each other. It was only a matter of time before they did something to bring some of the Tributes together, Briar could only hope that the amount of deaths at the Cornucopia the day before was enough to hold the Game Makers off for the rest of the day. Gunnar seemed to understand where her mind was going because he leaned closer to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, "You don't need to worry," he said softly, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze, "They like him, the Game Makers. If they do anything to cause a fight it's going to be in the Careers' best interests, it won't be a fair fight and they'll all get out of it alive." Briar nodded, she knew that he was right. The more interesting Games were the ones when the final two or three Tributes were all Careers. Those Games were usually more intense, bloodier, and much more violent. They'd be trying for that this year, Cato would be safe until the end when those he allied with, those who knew all his tricks would be the ones trying to kill him.

She found herself glaring at Marvel when the Career Tributes were on the screen again. He hadn't done anything to make her glare at him, she was just angry that he would try. Once the alliance wasn't in his best interest anymore he would try to kill Cato, her Cato. She reached out and grabbed Gunnar's hand to keep her grounded, to remind her of where she was, because at the moment she found herself wishing that she was in the arena with them just so that she could kill Marvel herself before he even tried to hurt Cato. Once again she found herself feeling ashamed. The Games had always disgusted her, made her angry. She had always watched them, always rooted for her favorites, but she had never wished for the other Tributes to die. This year's Games were bringing out the worst in her - something she was not happy with. But as she looked at the hard lines on Cato's face, lines that she was familiar with even though he hardly ever looked at her with that tense, worried, deadly look. She squinted her eyes slightly at the screen, stripping away the look he had worn since entering the arena and replacing it with the look she was used to - clear happy blue eyes, a smile so wide that it looked as though it might break his face, the dimple in his left cheek that she loved so much, the way he would wrinkle his nose playfully at her right before he said something so cheesily romantic that she would swoon and scoff at him at the same time.

If the other Tributes and the Game Makers knew that face, knew that Cato - her Cato. They wouldn't be trying to kill him. They wouldn't be able to. He was perfect, sweet, and loving. They wouldn't be able to forgive themselves if they took his life. But they didn't know that Cato, most people in her District didn't even know that Cato. He reserved that side of him for her and her alone. And she would hate the Capitol and any Tribute who tried to take him away from her. Her squint became a full glare before a gentle squeeze to her hand brought her back. She turned to look at Gunnar who was staring back at her with his eyebrows raised, silently wondering why she had been glaring at the screen. She nodded softly at him and pulled her hand out of his grasp, she didn't need his support at the moment. "He's going to come home," she said, her tone firm and final, leaving no room for argument. "He's going to be the one to come home."

Gunnar dropped his eyebrows and nodded to her. "He's not going to abandon you, Briar," he said softly, agreeing with you. "He never would. He's going to do absolutely everything he has to so that by this time next week he's getting off the train a winner."

Briar nodded, a soft smile playing on her lips. She could imagine it, their meeting when he got home, safe and sound. Everything about it was going to be perfect because everything about him was perfect. Now, she didn't feel so bad about wishing for the deaths of the other Tributes: even the crippled boy from 10, little Rue, and innocent looking Peeta, because those deaths meant something better. They meant that Cato would come home and he'd never have to leave her again. She liked the sound of that thought more than she could say.

_"I beat you!" Cato yelled as he stepped into the field a mere few seconds before Briar did. "You lose!" he chuckled as he turned around and wrapped his arms around Briar's waist, bending down so that he could kiss the tip of her nose. Briar shook her head, she would have won if Cato hadn't cheated. He had used the fact that he was bigger and stronger than her to hold her back by picking her up and spinning her around until she was dizzy before setting her back down and taking off toward the field._

_"You cheated," she pointed out, her tone a mix of frustration and love. She wanted to frown at him, but when she looked up to see the pout resting on his lips all she could do was smile. Cato smiled when he caught sight of the smile on her lips and bent down so that he could kiss them. Briar pulled away from him before the kiss could become too heated. "So are you ever going to tell me why we're skipping today?" she asked before she pushed fully out of his arms and started to walk toward the tree. "I find it hard to believe that you would risk getting in trouble just to come to the field with me." Cato grinned as he followed her._

_"I hadn't planned on skipping this morning," he said as he sat down on the ground and pulled Briar down so that she was nestled in between his open legs. He pressed a kiss into the side of her neck before he continued, "But survival training is boring and you looked so irresistible this morning when we were working with the swords. I just needed to get some time with you all to my self." Briar grinned at him before telling him that he was full of shit. He chuckled and shook his head as he moved his lips up to the soft skin just below her ear. "You know you love it," he whispered before he bit down gently on her earlobe. Briar wanted to tell him that he was wrong, she wanted to tell him that he was full of himself, but all she could do was gasp at the sensation. Cato chuckled as he pulled away from her, "You love me too," he said with a nod._

_"Of course I do," Briar muttered, shaking her head as if Cato's statement was so obvious that it was a waste of breath to say it. And as far as she was concerned it was, she had always loved Cato whether it was just as friends or as her boyfriend - the moment she decided she didn't hate him was the moment she had fallen in love with him._

_"Am I your prince charming?" Cato teased, referencing the old stories they had read when they were children that told stories of princes and princesses, castles and dragons, magic spells and true love._

_Briar tilted her head so that she could make eye contact with him, the corners of her lips tilted up in a soft smile. "Only if I'm your fairytale princess," she said, flinching at how cheesy her statement had been._

_Cato chuckled and kissed her forehead, "You've always been my fairytale, Baby," he said, his chuckle subsiding to a soft, gentle smile. He lowered his lips so that he could kiss her cheek, "I don't see that changing anytime soon."_

_Briar smiled up at him, "Then yes," she said with a nod, tilting her head so that Cato's next kiss landed on her lips. "You are my prince charming," she whispered once they had pulled away from each other._

_Cato grinned down at her, "Totally worth skipping survival training," he breathed before lowering his lips back to Briar's, this time he wasn't planning on pulling away any time soon._

-.-.-.-.-

The next morning there were rumors of a cannon shot, but no one knew which Tribute had died over the night. Briar felt a moment of panic when she thought that it might be Cato, but the panic subsided the moment the broadcast started and it began to show the recaps from the night before. They started with the girl from District 12, she was tucked away safely in a willow tree, it showed the other Tributes struggling to keep warm, but managing, it was when the cameras focused in on the girl from District 8 that Briar knew who the cannon was for. It was dark and the temperature in the arena must have dropped significantly, because the girl was visibly shaking. Briar felt a moment of pity for the girl but the pity quickly faded to disdain when the idiot lit a fire. The light and the smoke in the dark arena was like a giant sign saying _Here I am! Come get me!_ And though they had taken the first night off the Careers were now out hunting for Tributes and it would only be a matter of time before they found the girl.

It was near dawn when the Careers found her. It still surprised Briar when she realized that Peeta was still part of the alliance. She could understand the reasoning, but something about it didn't sit right with her. It made her nervous. Her death was pathetic, she pleaded with them not to kill her, Briar shook her head, pleading was probably the worst thing you could do in the Games, not only did it make you look weak, but it didn't gain you any sympathy, if anything it caused the exact opposite. She screamed when Cato stabbed her in the chest with his sword, he twisted the sword in the wound to open it up further before pulling it out roughly. Briar felt a bit of pride when she noted that Cato hadn't allowed the Games to change him, he had killed as she knew he would, but he wasn't causing the Tributes any unnecessary pain. Her scream lessened until it sounded like a gurgle and within moments she was silent.

The Careers were silent for a moment before they began to laugh. Briar frowned, the two Tributes from District 1 - Marvel and Glimmer were the most enthusiastic in their laughter, as if they had enjoyed watching the kill. Clove and the girl from District 4 laughed quietly. Cato simply smiled, but Briar noticed the grim set of his lips, he was happy that it was one last Tribute to worry about, proud of the kill even, but he hadn't enjoyed it. Only Peeta seemed honestly remorseful for the stupid girl. "Twelve down, eleven to go!" Marvel yelled once the group was done congratulating Cato on his kill. That statement made Briar nervous, it reminded her that the rest of the Careers in the alliance were playing the same game that Cato was, keeping their biggest enemies close enough to them to study their strengths and weaknesses, biding their time until an opportunity presented itself. Gunnar laughed softly when her eyes narrowed into a glare at the screen in front of them. But could he really blame her?

They check her body for supplies and when they don't find any they move on so that a hovercraft can collect the body. But there's something wrong, no cannon - the girl isn't dead yet. The group is standing mere feet from the willow tree Katniss is in when they realize that the girl can't be dead yet. They're arguing about whether or not Cato killed her but Briar isn't paying attention, she's busy watching Peeta. He's seen something, she's sure of it, he's squinting at the willow tree that Katniss is hiding in, he must have seen her. None of the other Careers have noticed him yet, they're too busy. Briar waits for him to move closer to the tree, but he doesn't. He doesn't even try to alert the other Tributes to the girl's location. "We're wasting time!" he says instead. "I'll go finish her and let's move on!"

Briar turns to look at Gunnar to see if he had noticed the way Peeta glanced at the willow tree again before going back to the girl from District 8. Gunnar looked upset at the fact that if the girl really isn't dead Peeta will get credit for the kill instead of Cato, but he doesn't seem to have noticed the tense nervous tone to the boy's voice. He turned to look at Briar when he felt her eyes on her. "What's going on?" he asked her, wondering if she had picked up on something that he hadn't. Briar shrugged and shook her head before she said nothing. She didn't know Peeta Mellark, she couldn't read his face, body language, and voice the way she could read Cato. For all she knew nothing was amiss with him. And she didn't want to voice her thought until she was sure. But when he came back from killing the girl by the fire and she say his sideways glance at the tree as they passed it again she was sure she was right. All those things didn't mean nothing. All those glances and the nervous tone definitely meant something. They meant that Peeta Mellark was a traitor. And none of the Careers knew it.

_"This is going to be your downfall," Briar said with a soft smile as she glanced at Cato from across the table. They had been working on an assignment at the training school all afternoon and while she had already finished it Cato was still having some difficulties. They had to read a story about Tributes from the 32nd Hunger Games. She wasn't even sure if she could call it a story, it was as if someone had taken the Games and made a transcript of it, there were pictures of the Tributes, notes on their personalities, the alliances, and their weapon skills. The quotes had been taken from that year's broadcast. It allowed the students to visualize the Games from that year without watching the tapes. They were working on being able to read your opponents, to use intuition and gut feelings about who to trust._

_Briar was good at it, she had always been good at making mental lists and remembering them later. She compiled lists of information about all the Tributes in her head, so she was able to pick up on the tiniest changes in their personalities, little ticks that alerted her to the fact that they were lying, making new alliances, and planning on abandoning the other Careers and going out on their own. She had finished her assignment early, had been congratulated by the instructor on her intuition, but Cato was having trouble. It wasn't that he wasn't smart enough to figure it out, it was that he didn't want to figure it out. He didn't think it was worth his time. He was far too confident in his own abilities to imagine that anyone would ever cross him. It wasn't that he didn't deserve to be confident, because he did, but he needed to understand that others would be able to use it against him._

_Cato glanced up at her and grinned, "That's what I have you for," he said, putting his pencil down on the desk and leaning back in the chair as if he didn't have a care in the world. "I'll be the one that gets bloody, does all the killing and the backstabbing. You'll be the smart one, the one who just watches people and makes sure that no one is trying to backstab me."_

_Briar smiled softly at him and reached out to grab his hand, giving it a gentle, comforting squeeze. "Except that if either of us ever end up in the arena we won't be in there together. You'll have to look over your own shoulder and I'll have to get my hands dirty."_

_Cato smiled as he turned his hand over so that he could interlock their fingers together. "That's probably for the best," he said with a nod, "I'd hate to be in the Games with you."_

_Briar nodded, "Same here."_

As the days broadcast ended with the images of the Careers hunting through the woods for Tributes and Katniss finally finding water and saving herself from dehydration Briar realized just how much of her life was devoted to the Games. It bothered her that almost all of her memories of Cato, even the happiest ones, were tinged with the threat of the Games hanging over their heads. She couldn't wait until a time in their lives when they wouldn't have to worry about that anymore, when they wouldn't need to wonder if they would both still be alive during the next year or if they would add to the hundreds of children that had died in the arenas. A sense of unease coiled in her stomach as the screen faded to black, it had been too quiet that day, no one had died since the girl from District 8 in the early morning. The Game Makers and the viewers in the Capitol would be getting bored. Something big would happen the next day.

-.-.-.-.-

Cato thought about Briar that night. If he were to be honest he thought about her all the time, but that night during the short nap he allowed himself he dreamed about her for the first time. He pictured her when he arrived at the train station after winning the Games. She would be proud of him of course, proud to say that she was the one dating the victor of the 74th Hunger Games. But she would be so much more than that. She would allow him to be so much more than that.

She'd be the first person he hugged on the train platform, if one could even call what he planned on doing to her hugging. He could imagine it in his sleep, he would ignore the cameras and the cheering friends, he probably wouldn't even notice his family. Briar would be all that he could see, she'd be dressed nicely, looking as pretty as she had when he turned back to look at her one final time when the train pulled away. But this time she would have daisies in her hair and her brown eyes would be sparkling with happy tears, she wouldn't care who saw them. One the day he had left he could tell that she was forcing herself not to cry, she didn't want to appear weak. But happy tears ... happy tears weren't weak.

He'd run to her, arms stretched out at his sides. She'd giggle at him and shake her head as if she thought he was an idiot. But once he got close enough she'd launch herself into his arms as if she couldn't stand not being able to touch him for another second. He'd want to pull away from her, to get a look at her and make sure that she was okay and she'd want to do the same thing, but he knew they wouldn't be able to, they wouldn't be able to untangle themselves from each other, wouldn't want to for a long time. The most he would be able to manage was to press kisses onto every bit of her that he could reach. She'd kiss his chest through his shirt, his neck, his chin, anything she could touch without having to pull herself out of his arms. And then the tears would fall from her brown eyes. He'd tease her for it as he always did when she cried over something silly and she'd finally pull away from him, just so that she could punch him playfully in the arm and tell him to, "Shut up."

It would be then that he would finally kiss her lips. He knew that she would try to keep it chaste, because of the cameras and the people watching. But he had waited too long to kiss her again and he wouldn't be willing to wait until they were alone to kiss her again. He imagined the way she would let out a soft moan when his tongue slipped in between her lips, the way she would gasp and loop her arms around his neck when he would lift her off the ground. Her fingers would tangle in his hair and she would smile into the kiss when she finally allowed her own tongue to move against his. She would still taste the same, feel the same underneath his hands as she had when he had left District 2. He realized that it was because he wouldn't have been gone for all that long, the Hunger Games never lasted more than a week and a half. Briar wouldn't have had time to change.

Cato would have changed though. He knew that, in the short amount of time that he had been gone he would have changed a lot. No matter how much he fought it he wouldn't be the same. He'd come back harder, less jaded, probably a bit broken. It didn't matter that he pretended that the killing in the arena hadn't bothered him it would have, it would have changed something inside of him. Briar would be able to tell as soon as she saw him, he knew that. And little by little she would try to fix him, to help him remember who had had been before he left. Maybe for a while he'd end of like that useless mentor from District 12, relying on alcohol to dull the pain and the memories. But eventually everything Briar would do to help him would work, he'd get closer to being the Cato she had always known and loved, but something would always be wrong, something would always be unfixable.

Briar and Cato would have many happy years ahead of them. They would always love each other, they would marry and have kids. They would learn to deal with what had happened to him and everything would be okay in the end. They would make it because they were meant to be. He knew that and she knew that too. Their life wouldn't be perfect the way Briar had once imagined, but it would be good, and he would love her for the rest of his life. He would always love her.

When he awoke Clove was looking at him with an odd mix of distaste and sympathy. He sat up slowly and raised his eyebrows, silently asking why she was staring at him like that. She stood up from her spot by the fire and walked around the fire to sit next to him. "You were whispering her name in your sleep," she said softly. Her almost kind tone was a direct contrast from the glare she fixed him with. His eyes widened as he glanced at the other Tributes in their group, wondering if they had heard him. Clove shook her head, "No one else heard you," she said softly.

Cato nodded and opened his mouth to, he wasn't sure - thank her maybe. When something in the distance caught his eyes. The sky above the woods in the distance was red, not the predawn pink he would have expected. He sniffed experimentally, the air smelt like smoke, a fire. Things had been quiet the day before. The Game Makers were probably bored and trying to up the excitement, bring the Tributes closer to each other and try to force a fight. He got the attention of the other Tributes, pointing toward the sky. "Let's go hunting guys."

* * *

Author's Note:  
So what do you guys think? Was it any good? Yes? No? Maybe so? **REVIEW **and let me know.  
I want to take a moment to thank you guys for your support! You guys really have been completely amazing!  
So I'd like to thank you for all the love you've been sending my way (and in Briar's direction too!).  
Your reviews have been so **GREAT** to read. They honestly make my day. And I want to take a brief pause to shout out to some of my favorite reviews from the last chapter.  
To the anonymous reviewer who wrote like a two paragraph review ... I love you! Haha you really know how to butter an author up, don't you? Thank you, I'm glad that you think I'm talented and that you love Briar! And I'm so glad that you loved the interactions between Cato and Briar, I hope that continued for you in this chapter.  
_spoiledrotten94_: I honestly laughed out loud at your review! I really did, so thank you for that.  
_Gold Rain Morning_: I'm really glad that people have gotten attached to Cato while reading my story. I kind of started this story as a challenge to see if I could make a not so likable guy a bit more likable and to give reasons behind his actions, but I honestly didn't realize I would get so much support for it. It's a bit overwhelming in a good way.  
_Cheshirechords_: Thank you for your review. And don't worry, no matter how heartbreaking the final chapter is think of it this way. I'm basically sold on the idea of writing an AU ending in which Cato survives after I finish this story which means about a week after I kill him I'll bring him back for a heartwarming ending that I think _my_ Cato deserves. :D  
To those of you that I didn't give a shout out to I want to thank you as well! I love and smile at absolutely EVERY review you guys leave me so keep it up.  
Now I need **your opinion **on something: you can give me your preference in a **REVIEW **or a **PRIVATE MESSAGE.  
**Do you guys want me to continue detailing every death until the end of the story like I did in this chapter, every day in the arena, etc. Or do you want me to briefly go through all of them and get straight to the climax of the book.  
It's completely up to you, I have no preference and am good with either option. But if I keep detailing things this story could go on for a lot longer than originally anticipated not that that's a bad thing.  
So let me know and I'll see you back here in about a week.  
Hugs and kisses,  
Chloe Jane.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hunger Games_ or any of the recognizable characters. I do however, own Briar Greenlaw, so do what you will with that.

Notes: Played around with some facts and timing in this chapter, I hope you don't mind.

And, be happy ... there's still no end in sight.

* * *

During the broadcast the next day it seems as though everything in the arena is on fire. Every once in a while the Game Makers allow the viewers to see what the other Tributes are up to: The girl from District 5, Rue, Thresh, they show that the boy from District 3 is still alive and guarding the Careers stash of supplies, and surprisingly enough the crippled boy from 10 has managed to find a cave to hide in. But these views of the other Tributes are few and far between because the main focus of the day's broadcast are Katniss and the Career pack. The Game Makers have taken a special interest in ensuring that these seven Tributes run into each other.

It started at Dawn, Katniss was sleeping in a tree when the forest around her seemed to instantly go up in flames. Briar couldn't help but smile as she watched the girl struggle to get out of the tree. But she managed to, and then she was off running, quickly dodging the fire balls that the trees were launching at her. The scene switched to the Careers at their own, contained fire when they noticed the orange glow above the forest and decided that it was time to go hunting. Years of watching the Games had trained them well - they recognized the fire as a plot to bring the Tributes closer together, to force a fight. Cato and the other Careers weren't worried, and why should they be. There were six of them and they had the best weapons, were better fed, and for the most part better trained, they weren't the ones at a disadvantage. "I hope it's 12," Glimmer muttered angrily as the group moved into the woods. Briar smiled, now Katniss Everdeen was not only fighting against the fire, but soon enough she'd be fighting against Tributes too. There was no way that she was going to live through the rest of the day.

_One of the few things Briar enjoyed about the Games was watching the kids from different Districts interact. Sometimes two kids from the same District would get homesick and reminisce about their home. Not only was it nice, but it was interesting to hear about the Districts that Briar would never get a chance to visit. Her favorite thing about Tributes reminiscing was the rare occasions that the kids from District 2 talked about their home. Briar loved watching the surprised looks on the other Tributes faces. It was as if the stories of District 2 Tributes having friends, lives, and fun was a surprise - as if all they did with their lives was train for the Games._

_And while it was true that they did train a lot, they had their evenings and weekends off and holidays too. In fact, despite the training the kids in District 2 probably had more fun in life than the kids in most other Districts. Or at least Briar Greenlaw did._

_She had just turned sixteen and the Hunger Games were finally finished for the year. District 2 hadn't won this year, it was the girl Tribute from District 4 - the won who at Cornucopia had decided not to ally herself with the other Careers. But there was still a celebratory mood among her friends as they gathered around the bonfire pit in the field. One of the kids, Fir Wellwood, had managed to convince his parents to give him enough alcohol to get the entire group sufficiently drunk and they were now sitting in a circle passing around bottles of alcohol, roasting marshmallows, singing, and really just being loud drunken teenagers. Briar was seated comfortably between Cato's legs, leaning against his strong, hard chest. She glanced up at him and grinned when he smiled down at her and wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning in to whisper in her ear, "You're drunk."_

_Her grin only widened at that when Fir handed her a bottle and she took another swig of the warm liquid. She wanted to argue and say that she wasn't, but maybe Cato was right, the alcohol didn't burn as it traveled down her throat anymore it felt no different than water. She nodded as she handed the bottle to Cato so that he could take a swig, he had a higher tolerance than she did. "You're not going to take advantage of me?" she asked in a teasing tone as Cato passed the bottle to the kid next to him._

_Cato smiled at her and leaned in to press his lips softly against her own, "Never."_

_Their sweet, albeit drunken moment, was interrupted a moment later when Delphi Elphinstone approached the circle around the fire. Briar was the first to notice her, but soon everyone had, the group got quiet as if they didn't know what to do now. Delphi was only a few months older than Briar, but now, in the firelight she looked as if she had gained ten years overnight. Honestly they were surprised that she was there, and not at home with her family, mourning over the loss of her brother. Cato was the first one to speak, grabbing the bottle of alcohol from the kid he had just handed it to and holding it up in the air toward Delphi in a salute, "To Cordo and Orchid!" he said in a soft voice before he took a swig._

_Those that had bottles in their hands repeated the statement before taking a swig and passing the bottles to someone else. As the bottles made their way around the circle everyone repeated, "To Cordo and Orchid!" until they had all gotten a chance to say their goodbyes. Delphi stood there, biting her lip and trying to keep the tears from spilling out of her eyes until Briar stood up and walked over to her with a bottle in her hand. She handed the bottle to Delphi before gently grabbing the girl's hand and pulling her over to sit next to her and Cato. The blonde girl was quiet for a moment, staring down at the bottle and toying with the label before she held it up above her head and repeated the salutation herself. And then she lowered her lips to the top of the bottle and chugged the rest of the warm liquid._

_Cato nodded and leaned forward to nuzzle his face into the crook of Briar's neck for a moment before he pulled away. "This is what I want," he said, loud enough for everyone in the circle to hear him. "If I ever get sent to the Games and I die, this is what I want. No crying, just you guys, all of my friends sitting around a bonfire getting drunk in my honor."_

_Briar tensed at the idea of Cato dying in the Games, but she forced herself to relax back into him and smile when one of the girls asked her if that's what she would want if she died in the arena. She shook her head, her smile tightening a fraction as she felt Cato's arms tense around her, "Hell no," she said with a chuckle. "If I get sent to the Games and die you bastards better be crying for months." That got a laugh out of those around the circle and soon enough the conversation around the bonfire began to flow again as people relaxed._

_These were the times Briar liked best. The relaxed times she got with her friends and her boyfriend. When even the Games seemed like a distant threat, one they didn't really have to worry about. She turned her head so that she could look at Cato over her shoulder and smiled when he leaned in to press a kiss against her lips. She was still smiling when they pulled away from each other because this was one thing she was sure was a constant in her life. At this moment she knew that whatever happened she would always have Cato. And he would always have her._

The Career group spent the entire day trying to find the girl from 12. They were moving slowly, Cato had stabbed Peeta during the bloodbath and he seemed to be having more and more trouble with his leg every day. The smoke wasn't helping them either. Which really aggravated the viewers in District 2 because they knew where the girl was. She had fallen asleep by a stream when she was trying to wash out the burn on her leg. The Careers were so close, but they just couldn't see her. Briar had felt ashamed when she cheered with the rest of her District when the girl had gotten burnt, but she had forgiven herself, she was sure that those in District 12 would be just as happy if one of the Careers got injured so she wouldn't allow herself to feel too bad.

The broadcast ended in the early evening when the Careers had finally caught onto the girl's trail, they were close now - she was injured and only had about a minute's head start. There was a cheerful and celebratory feeling in the air in District 2 because the citizens were sure that the next morning they would wake up to learn that the girl from 12, and possibly her male counterpart since the Careers wouldn't need him anymore, were dead. Briar smiled and laughed along with the rest of her friends as they walked back toward their houses, but a part of her felt nervous. Once the girl from 12 was gone the only major threat to the Career pack would be Thresh. They would soon turn on each other and that was a lot more worrisome than the rest of the Tributes in the arena combined.

-.-.-.-.-

There were rumors of two cannon rounds the next morning. Briar was confident that it was Katniss and Peeta from District 12. The Game Makers didn't bother showing the other Districts their surviving Tributes, the suspense seemed to have killed them too and they just wanted to get to the climax of the chase that had started the morning before. The Career pack chased Katniss up in a tree, Briar was sure they had her, there was nowhere for the girl to go, she was trapped. But she didn't seem worried as she taunted the Careers and climbed higher in the tree. "How's everything with you?" she asks with a grin, playing for the cameras, Briar wants to gag.

Cato doesn't miss a beat though, "Well enough," he says with what could have passed for a friendly nod if he hadn't been holding a sword that could easily cut through human skin and bone in his hand. "Yourself?" The people of District 2 laughed at that, believing that Cato was playing a game with his prey. But Briar can see that both Tributes are playing the same game, the only question is who will win.

"It's been a bit warm for my taste," the girl says. The District laughs again, thinking of the burn in her lower leg that will definitely be slowing her down for the rest of the Games. "The air's better up here. Why don't you come on up?" Briar hears a thirteen year old boy near her say something about how the girl from 12 is an idiot, but Briar shakes her head. The girl's smart, even Briar all the way in District 2 can see that the tree is not strong enough to hold Cato's weight. Briar can only hope that Cato realizes this soon enough that he doesn't fall to his death.

She shakes her head and silently begs him to send one of the smaller girls up in the tree as he steps forward and tells the girl that he thinks he will climb the tree. He tucks his sword in his belt and begins to climb the tree. Katniss waits until Cato has started to climb and the Careers are distracted before she begins to climb further up the tree.

Cato manages to climb about twenty feet off the ground before the branches crack under his weight and falls onto his back with a crash. Briar's hands instantly clap over her eyes at the image, worried that she's about to see Cato's death and learn that he was one of the cannon shots. But she sighs with relief a moment later when she hears his familiar voice cursing in a way she hadn't heard in a while. She smiles as she peeks through her fingers to watch Glimmer try to scale the tree. She gets about twenty-five feet off the ground before she gets nervous and climbs back to the ground, trying to shoot the girl with an arrow instead. Briar shook her head as the arrow lodges itself in the tree too far away from Katniss to considered _close_ to on target. "Someone needs to take that weapon away from her and give it to someone who _can_ shoot," Briar mutters as she watches Katniss yank the arrow out of the tree and wave it tauntingly at the Career Tributes on the ground.

Clove surges forward, about to try to climb the tree when the traitor, Peeta starts to speak. "Oh, let her stay up there," he says in an almost bored voice, as if he doesn't care what is happening at the moment. "It's not like she's going anywhere. We'll deal with her in the morning." Briar squints her eyes at the short boy, trying to figure out his game, what he thought Katniss would be able to do overnight with the Careers camped out under her tree. But none of the other Tributes seemed to notice anything suspicious because they agreed, building a fire and pulling snacks out of their bags, every once in a while sending glares toward the tree.

Briar sighed and settled further back into her chair, realizing that she was going to have to wait for a while before she realized who the cannon rounds had been for. She smiled softly, fondly even when she heard Cato's whispered curse when he turned his neck too quickly and felt how sore it was. Cato's mother had never liked when her son cursed, but Briar had always had a soft spot for it. She even enjoyed it, something that bothered Cato to no end because when they fought and he cursed all that did was make Briar laugh and smile at him.

_Their friends liked to say that Cato and Briar were the perfect couple and that they were perfect for each other. And maybe they were perfect for each other, but they were definitely not perfect people or even a perfect couple. When they got along it was absolutely great, but when they fought - it was bad. As they got older they fought a lot less, they learned how to communicate with each other and read the other's moods, but in the beginning they had fights all the time._

_Cato hadn't always been very good about discussing his feelings. Sure, he had been the one to let Briar know that he liked her and he had been the first one to say, "I love you," but both of those moments had stemmed from fights. It seemed to Briar that the only way to get Cato to become vulnerable enough to talk about his feelings was to get him absolutely pissed off first. And while she didn't particularly like seeing pissed off Cato or fighting with him it seemed to happen a lot more often the more serious they got._

_It was as if Cato was afraid of getting too serious about Briar, something that the girl thought was absolutely insane. Didn't he realize that he wasn't the only one in the relationship? He wasn't the only one who was scared out of their mind and worried about what would happen to them when and if the relationship ended? Didn't he realize that she was just as scared about giving him the chance to break her heart as he was with her? Apparently not because for the two weeks leading up to the day he told her he loved her every time Briar turned around Cato was trying to pick a fight with her for some reason. Months later once they were more comfortable with trusting each other Cato would admit that he had thought that if he managed to chase Briar away before he told her that he loved her it wouldn't hurt as much as it would if she left him afterward. Cato was an idiot._

_And he was an idiot on the night of their first anniversary as well._

_Briar hadn't really expected anything spectacular for their anniversary, she would have been happy with a walk around their village, simply holding hands and being content with being together but Cato had decided that he wanted to do something spectacular of their anniversary, something that included sneaking past the fence on the outside of their District and venturing into the woods that surrounded it. When Briar had found out his plan she had flat out refused to go along with it. She shook her head and told him to stop being stupid. Cato had gotten upset, which just upset Briar even more and before she knew it she was crying and yelling at her boyfriend on what should have been the happiest night of their relationship so far. "I can't do this, Cato," she finally breathed, shaking her head and trying to walk away from him when she decided that she had had enough with his yelling._

_Cato moved in front of her so that she couldn't walk around him, "Damn it," he cursed. "Nothing will ever be good enough for you, will it?"_

_That caught Briar by surprise, she stopped trying to move away from him, his words being what stopped her, not his attempt at blocking her exit. "Excuse me?" she asked him, crossing her arms angrily over her chest and getting defensive at the fact that he was trying to place the blame on her when as far as she was concerned he was the one at fault. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" She was angry, that much was obvious, but if Cato looked closely he would have been able to see that all the glares and yelling had been out of hurt instead of anger. He didn't though, look closer that is._

_"I'm never going to be good enough for you!" Cato bit out angrily. Briar shook her head and told him that he needed to stop being an idiot and oblivious. Cato scoffed, "That's rich," he sneered, "especially coming from you." Briar glared at him, but she didn't say anything, he would explain when he was ready. "I'm oblivious!" Cato said, laughing bitterly at his own statement. "Hate to break it to you sweetheart, but I'm not the one who didn't realize how I felt about you."_

_"What does that have to do with anything?" Briar asked angrily. She knew that she had been oblivious before they started dating. Apparently Cato had liked her for a while, but she had never seemed to notice it. That wasn't her fault though, she couldn't be blamed for that. But Cato seemed dead set on trying. "That wasn't my fault and you know it!"_

_"I'm beginning to wonder if you really were that oblivious or if you were faking it," Cato said with a glare."Because honestly, there's no way that you didn't notice how I was practically throwing myself at you every chance I got for about a year. I just wasn't good enough for you! You were waiting for someone better. Or you were waiting for me to do something that would convince you that I was worthy. And you know what? I'm still trying to prove that to you everyday. Because I will never, ever deserve you and you know it!"_

_Briar softened as she listened to his rant, her anger pretty much disappearing because she suddenly understood what this was about. It wasn't about her not liking his idea to sneak out of the District or her being oblivious before they started dating, or even how she treated him while they were dating. This was Cato feeling as though he wasn't good enough for her and somehow trying to convince her that she felt the same way. She was angry at him for being an idiot, but she loved him even more for it. "Who put this idea in your head?" she asked him softly._

_Cato laughed cynically, "Do you have an hour?" he joked, but his face was serious. "My parents, my brother, your brothers, some kids at school, random people on the streets that give us strange looks as if they don't know why you're with me. And you, I mean look at you - you're perfect and I'm ... me. I screw up, I have a temper, I can be stupid. I will never deserve you."_

_Briar stared up at him, a slight sheen of unshed tears glistening in her eyes. "You are such an idiot," she said, her tone fond as she shook her head, the gentle smile softening the insult a bit. She took a step closer to Cato, reaching out to placer her hand on his strong forearm. "Did I ever give you the impression that I thought you didn't deserve me?" she asked. Cato shook his head. Briar smiled softly at him. "Because I think you do," she said with a nod, moving even closer to him. "Honestly I think it's the other way around. I don't deserve you."_

_Cato laughed and shook his head. "This just proves my point," he groaned. "Of course you don't realize how out of my league you are. Of course you don't think you deserve me because you don't realize how utterly amazing you are." Briar shook her head, she sometimes wished that she could see herself through Cato's eyes. Sure, she knew that she was smart and good looking, but she had never understood what it was about her that captured Cato's interest. He was the one that was perfect, not her. Cato shook her head in response to her silent denial. "For some reason you chose me, and I just wish I understood why," he whispered._

_Briar smiled softly at him, her hand drifting up his arm, shoulder, and neck to rest on his cheek, gently cupping his face. "Isn't it enough that I chose you and you chose me?" she asked him, her tone breathless and soft. "Do we really have to question why?" She bit her lip after she asked him that, she wanted to tell him that she loved him. She wanted him to know just how much she cared for him, but it was too soon. Bringing out the 'L' word would just scare him away, something that she was not willing to do at the moment. The truth was that she had always loved him, as soon as she had gotten over him killing that damn bird she had fallen in love with him. It was something that was as much a part of her as the DNA that made her hair brown. She was surprised that he couldn't read it in her body language and the way she acted around him, she was sure that it was practically written on her face every time she looked at him._

_Cato leaned into her hand, closing his eyes for a moment before he looked down at her. "Do you mean that?" he whispered, his voice sounded more insecure than Briar had ever heard it. Briar stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a gentle kiss onto his lips before she pulled away and nodded silently up at him. Cato nodded too, "Then we won't question it," he said, a slow smile spreading across his lips. "Happy Anniversary, Briar Patch." Briar had rolled her eyes before returning the sentiment, her boyfriend really was an idiot if he didn't realize just how much she thought he deserved her._

Gunnar nudged her out of the memory, there was something happening on the screen that she had missed because she was too busy focusing on her memories. She glanced up at the screen, it was just barely dawn in the arena. She's gotten a sponsor, it seems, someone had been willing to pay the probably hefty sum of money to send her medicine for the burn on her leg. Briar worried her bottom lip between her teeth, it was no good that the girl had sponsors. That would make it that much more difficult to beat her. And now that she had medicine for her leg the playing field was more even. She would have rathered that the Careers had an advantage. But the medicine was not what Gunnar had wanted to alert her to. The girl had stood up on her limb and carefully climbed a few limbs up. She was using one of Clove's knife to saw at the limb. Briar raised her eyebrows wondering what the girl was doing. But then her eyes lit up in understanding when she saw the Tracker Jacker nest hanging from the limb.

She cursed quietly, in effect the girl was making a bomb that she planned to drop right on top of the sleeping Careers. Briar tensed up, reaching up to grab Gunnar's hand, if only so that she would have something to squeeze. She wanted to scream, to wake Cato up somehow but that was a stupid desire. It didn't matter how much noise she made here. She didn't even know where the arena was this year, but it was definitely not anywhere near District 2. She could scream to her heart's content and Cato would never hear her. And the girl just continued to saw away at the branch. Briar crossed her fingers on her free hand, silently praying that the Tracker Jackers would identify her as a threat and attack her before the nest dropped, but the deadly insects were acting sluggish and strange. "It's the smoke," Gunnar explained quietly, understanding exactly what Briar was thinking.

The girl is stung three times before the nest drops down to the ground and breaks open. The insects aren't sluggish anymore. They're angry and they've identified the Career Tributes as their enemies. It's complete chaos when the Careers wake up. Cato and a few of the others are smart enough to take off running as fast as they can while others are not so lucky. Cato had abandoned his sleeping bag and started to run with nothing but his sword. Clove tried to grab her knives, but she was too slow and she began to get stung. Briar gasped and covered her eyes with her hands, this was the last thing she wanted to see. Clove had stuck her neck out on the line for Briar and Briar knew that she would have to die so that Cato could come home, but she had wanted it to be a kind death. Tracker Jacker stings were amazingly painful and not a good way to go. Cato called out her name and Briar peeked out through her fingers to see Cato grab the smaller Tribute and throw her over his shoulder before beginning to run in the direction of the lake. She let out a sigh of relief, Cato had kept his word - he was looking out for Clove, just as he had promised he would.

Briar glanced around her and caught the eye of Clove's mother. The woman was small and dark haired like her daughter. There were concerned lines ingrained into her skin. But for a moment she looked relieved, she had been saved from watching her daughter die an extremely painful death. She gave Briar a small, barely noticeable nod of gratitude, as if she knew that Briar was part of the reason that Cato had gone back into danger to save her daughter. Briar nodded back before turning her eyes back to the screen. The Careers that managed to get up and running are almost to the lake where they will be safe, once they hit the water the Tracker Jackers will stop looking for them and from the looks of it they don't have many stings which is good. The girl Tribute from District 4 and Glimmer aren't so lucky. The girl from 4 has already staggered off and died, while Glimmer is struggling. The cameras focus on Glimmer as if they know that something is going to happen to the blonde soon, something that is a game changer.

Briar can't figure it out, the formerly beautiful blonde is covered in Tracker Jacker stings. The stings are swelling and oozing and her body is twitching uncontrollably. Her limbs are swelling up to three times their normal size and some of the stings have begun to burst, spraying her body with a disgusting green liquid. Her cannon sounds just as the girl from 12 reaches her. Briar swallows around a lump in her throat and forces herself not to throw up at the sight. She wonders what the girl from 12 is going to do when she lifts a rock and begins to use it to break Glimmer's fingers. And then she sees it - the bow. Katniss is going after the bow. And then Briar begins to put things together that she hadn't before: the way 12's eyes had lingered on the bow the first day at the Cornucopia, the reason the girl had sponsors (the odds were high in her favor), the fact that there had been such a nice bow at the Cornucopia to begin with, and of course the eleven Katniss had received as a training score. She had to have done something to earn that. And based on the determination on her face as she tried to get the bow and the arrows it had had something to do with the weapon.

Briar felt stomach bile trying to make its way up her throat and she swallowed it down. Not only had 12 just taken out two of the Careers, but she had severely weakened her biggest enemies and she had gained probably the one weapon that would make her deadly in the Games. Everything had changed in a matter of seconds and none of the other Tributes knew it yet. The girl starts and turns around, glancing into the woods behind her and Briar realizes that the Career pack has lost the Tracker Jackers and now, despite the hallucinations and dizziness they were probably experiencing, are coming after Katniss to finish her off. She has nowhere to run and Briar feels a sense of grim satisfaction when she realizes that the bow and arrows don't matter, 12 will never get to use them.

Peeta's the first one to get to her and the satisfaction instantly leaves Briar's body. The boy is finally going to have to reveal that he had been playing the Careers, something Briar had realized since the beginning. "What are you still doing here?" he hisses at the girl, just loud enough for the microphones to pick up. "Are you mad?" he gently prods her with his spear to get her moving. "Get up! Get up!" And then Cato and the rest of the Careers are on them and he screams at her, "Run! Run!" The girl doesn't need to be yelled at again and she takes off running without a look back. Cato stab's the boy in the leg with his sword before he has a chance to try to escape after her and the Tributes leave him there to die as they take after the girl again.

-.-.-.-.-

It is two full days before any of the Careers are able to function again. They never did find the girl from 12, but they were sure that the boy was dead, he can't have survived for long as injured as he was. They had somehow made it back to the camp by the lack before they had all succumbed to the pain and hallucinations that accompanied the Tracker Jacker stings. Their sponsors had sent them medication for the stings and they were lucky enough that the boy from District 3, the one who had reburied the mines around their food, was still scared of them enough that he had applied the medication to their stings instead of trying to finish them all off while they were vulnerable. Cato wasn't going to ask why the boy hadn't done that, he assumed that he was probably too afraid of the girl from 12 to kill off his only defense.

Cato was the first one to wake up, he groaned and attempted to move his arm to shield his eyes from the sun. It was too bright. Phox, the boy from 3, rushed forward with a canteen of water and helped Cato sit up against a rock. "Has she died?" Cato bit out the moment he had swallowed some of the water. Phox shook his head slowly, not needing to ask who she was. Cato cursed before glancing over toward Clove who was laying curled on her side less than a foot away from him. "How is she?" he asked, jerking his head toward the small, fragile looking girl, knowing that this time he would have to indicate which girl he was talking about.

Phox nodded, "She's okay," he said softly. He always talked in hushed tones around Cato and Marvel as if he was afraid that they would kill him if he spoke too loudly. "I've been putting medication on everyone's stings. I managed to pull out most of the stingers which is good or things would be a lot worse for you. She got stung a bit, I don't know how she ran out of the woods, but she's getting better." Cato nodded, deciding against sharing that he had carried the small girl out of the woods himself. He glanced down at his sting covered hands, feeling a small tinge of pride in the fact that he had saved her life. He could have left her to die, but he had saved her because he had promised that he would look out for her as long as he could. And he refused to disappoint Briar. He had already hurt her by volunteering for the Games, he wasn't going to disappoint her too by breaking promises and betraying the girl he owed everything to.

And he really did owe everything to Clove. She was the reason that Briar wasn't here in the arena with him. She was the reason that Briar was safe at home in District 2 instead of laying on the ground next to him covered in Tracker Jacker stings and groaning in pain. He glanced toward Clove again, wondering if the younger girl understood just how much he owed her. He turned back to Phox. "Has anyone died?" he asked. Phox shook his head and Cato cursed again, he had been sure that Peeta would have died by now. Where was he and how was he still alive?

Phox went to get him food to eat and Cato tried to relax, content in knowing that the hallucinations were finally done. They had been hell because they seemed so real that he couldn't reassure himself that they weren't. He had imagined that Briar had already forgotten about him, that she was in District 2 dating some new boy and hoping that he wouldn't come home from the Games. He had imagined that the girl from 12 had picked up his body and thrown it into a pit of snakes and left him there for their venom and teeth to finish him off. He had imagined that it was Briar that had gone to the Games, not him, and that he was at home watching her die and not being able to do anything about it. Each hallucination had been worse than the one before and he was sure at one point or another that he had started crying. The good news was that now that he was lucid he knew that there was no way Briar would ever leave him or be wishing that he didn't win the Games, there were no snakes, and most importantly - he was in the arena while Briar was at home surrounded by their friends and family and completely safe.

And that was more of a relief than the sponsors that had sent the Careers medicine or the food and water that were now in his hands. He allowed his head to lull back against the rock for a moment as he looked up at the sky, making a silent vow to Briar that, now more than ever he was determined to come home to her. He'd be damned if that wretch from 12 got to go home. And he was determined to be the one to kill her now. She was his, he'd take care of her once and for all.

-.-.-.-.-

The three days after the Tracker Jacker attack are extremely stressful for Briar. First she has to worry about whether Cato or Clove had been seriously injured (which they hadn't) and then she had to worry about whether the Game Makers would get bored of the fact that nothing was happening and try to speed things up a bit (they didn't, the gruesome deaths of the girl from District 4 and Glimmer seemed to sate them for now). And then, to top it all off, not only had the girl from 12 get her stings healed, but she now had an ally in the little girl, Rue. No one had really paid attention to the small girl, Briar included, but she soon saw that Rue had the ability to move around the arena without being noticed by the other Tributes. She had spied on the Careers and was smart, when paired with Katniss the pair was almost as dangerous as the Career pack.

The boy from District 10 died, his handicap finally forcing him to succumb to the harsh environment he was in. Briar hardly registered his death because she was more focused on how she was forced to watch as the two hatched a plan to attack the Careers' food stash so that they would starve and be further weakened. The only relief Briar received was when she realized that the two girl's plan had nothing to do with hunting the Careers or hurting them, just destroying their food source. Cato would be able to survive, he would find food in the woods, he and Clove would be fine. Briar was sure of that.

And there was still the off chance that maybe the girl wouldn't understand what the Careers had done and she would get blown up by one of the mines that were buried around the food supply. It was a long shot, and Briar almost felt ashamed for it, but she crossed her fingers and hoped.

All of her hope was pointless. Rue did everything according to plan, she lit the first fire to gain the attention from the Careers and they all set out to search for her. The girl from 12 might not have figured it out if it weren't for the girl from District 5 that Briar had forgotten was still in the Games at all. The redhead had figured out what the Careers had done and used it to her advantage, and stole from them. The audience in District 2 watched as Katniss assessed what 5 had done and quickly figured out why the boy from District 3 was still around. Briar shook her head, they should have killed him earlier so that the other Tributes wouldn't get suspicious.

The camera's switch so that the viewers can get a glimpse of Rue lighting the second fire. And then they switch again to show that the Careers have split up in their search. Cato and Clove, Marvel and the boy from District 3.

By the time the scene goes back to the girl from 12 she's put an arrow in her bow and she's preparing to aim it at a sack of apples dangling from the top of the stockpile. Briar bit her lip and watched with wide eyes as the girl shot one, two, three arrows and then the bag splits and the apples are slowly tumbling down toward the ground. Briar lets out a nervous squeal as the screen goes black and the Capitol seal appears, signifying the end of the broadcast for the day. She wanted to pout and stomp her foot and declare that it wasn't fair and demand that they continue the broadcast today. Just so that she can see Cato kill the girl from 12. Briar had always admired skill and resourcefulness in the Games, but there was something about this girl that she hated. The girl was a pain in her side and was posing a serious danger to Cato and that was not something Briar could root for or even stand.

But she didn't do any of this because when she turned around she noticed a stranger making their way toward her. She had never seen the woman before and if the outfit and the make-up were anything to go off of she could guess that the woman was from the Capitol. She turned to look at Gunnar with raised eyebrows. The woman smiled at them once she was standing in front of them. "Gunnar," she said, turning to look at the young boy. He nodded. "Good, your parents told me that you would be here. And Briar," she said, turning her warm smile on the girl in question, her eyes softening a bit as if she truly felt pain for the girl. "Or should I say, Briar Patch?"

"Briar's fine," the girl deadpanned while trying not to glare at the woman in front of her. "I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are."

The woman smiled and waved her hand as if she wasn't concerned at all. "Of course you don't, dear. My name is Laurel Herriot, I'm here to do the top eight interviews." Briar nodded, her lips forming an understanding _O_ when she realized why the woman was here. At the moment there were still ten Tributes, but very soon there would only be eight. The Capitol always broadcasted interviews with the loved ones of the final eight Tributes. She had seen it many times since District 2 usually had at least one Tribute in the final eight, she had just never been a part of the interviews. Laurel nodded and reached out to grab their hands and pull them after her, "Great," she said, her voice too chirpy and happy for the situation. "We'll start with the girlfriend, shall we?" she asked, turning her head to grin at Briar. Briar tried to smile back and nodded, pretty sure that she didn't have a choice in the matter.

-.-.-.-.-

They had assigned her a beauty team. Briar couldn't figure out whether she should be touched by the fact that they wanted her to look her best or if she should be insulted by the fact that they thought she needed a beauty team in the first place. But once she had been shoved in front of them she had no choice but to let them have their way. It took them close to an hour and a half before they had finished her make-up, hair, and put her in a dress. Finally they allowed her to look in the mirror. She looked beautiful, there was no question there, but she didn't like her face, it was gorgeous and perfect, but it wasn't hers. Her brown hair had been pulled up into a messy bun on the back of her head with carefully crafted curled wisps that escaped and dangled down. A three strip Grecian headband had been placed on the top of her head. The dress was long and tight down to below her butt before it spread out. She smiled and ran her fingers over the green fabric, the dress was the same color hers had been at the Reaping - someone had been paying attention.

Laurel smiled at her when she walked out of her prep room and into the interview area. "You looked so good at the Reaping in that color," she said with an approving nod. "We knew that if we got a chance to interview you we'd have to put you back in that color again." Briar smiled as she sat down in her seat and cast a sideways glance at the camera in front of them, the Capitol cared too much about what people were wearing and not enough about the children dying in the arena if you asked her. Not that she would ever say that out loud. Laurel stared at her for a moment longer before turning her smiling face to the camera to start the interview. "And I'm here with Briar Greenlaw, better known as the girl who stole fierce Cato's heart, still better known as Briar Patch. How are you Briar?" she asked, turning back to look at the brunette.

"I'll be better when my Cato comes home," Briar said with a soft, nervous sounding laugh. She had never been the type to laugh or even get nervous in situations like this, but she knew what part she needed to play. The gifts sponsors were sending were going to start getting a lot more expensive. Part of the point of these interviews was to give the Tributes' family and close friends a chance to pull on the heart strings of some of the sponsors. She couldn't send anything to Cato in the arena, but if she could help him she would do everything in her power to do so.

Laurel smiled at her and reached out to gently clasp her hand, "I bet you will be, Briar, I bet you will be. But for now, let's talk about how excited you are that Cato has made it to the final eight." Briar forced herself not to get excited over this, this interview did not mean that Cato was in the final eight, it was just preparation. If he died they just would never show it. It wasn't a guarantee.

She smiled softly, "I was never worried that he wouldn't," she said, turning to make eye contact with the camera so that everyone would would be able to see the truth shining in her eyes. She turned back to Laurel, "Cato is smart, strong, and brave. There was never an instant when I doubted that he wouldn't at least make it this far. What's more is that he promised me that he would come home to me. And Cato has never broken a promise to me, not since we first met. I refuse to let him start now."

"You have known each other for a very long time," Laurel prompted. Briar nodded and replied that they had known each other for twelve years, practically their entire lives. "What I've been wondering since the first time I heard him say it was where the nickname Briar Patch came from, can you tell me about that?"

Briar shrugged, "There really isn't much of a story when it comes to that," she said, shaking her head. "My name is Briar and there are only so many nicknames one can get from that name. Bri and Briar Patch are the two Cato settled on. There's no endearing story or anything to_ that_."

Laurel caught on to Briar's tone and shifted closer in her chair. "But there are endearing stories?" she asked. Briar nodded and turned to the camera, flashing it a look that said, _of course, you stupid woman_. "Would you be willing to share one?" Laurel asked.

Briar bit her bottom lip, pretending to debate about it for a moment before she nodded. "My favorite flowers are daisies," she said, allowing a soft, blissful smile to spread across her pink lips. "Not because they're the prettiest flower or anything, but because I used to get a daisy a day every spring and summer. Cato never handed them to me, he would simply leave them on my front step or at my desk at school, or on top of my bag at the training center. Cato never admitted that they were from him, but his eyes were alway a bit brighter and his smile was always a bit bigger. And I realized that I loved them about the same time I realized I loved the man who kept giving them to me."

Laurel squeezed her hand again and made a cooing noise as if she could not imagine anything sweeter. She turned to look at the camera for a moment before turning back to Briar. "And now for the tough question. If Cato dies, how will you handle it?"

Briar smiled, "He's not going to die in these Games. But, on the extreme off chance that he does, Cato has always been specific about what he wants to happen. He says no tears, he wants his group of friends to go out to our field, gather around a bonfire and drink in his honor."

"No tears?" Laurel asked.

Briar shook her head, "No tears."

"And how are you handling the Games this year?"

Briar sighed, "I'm handling them the same way I handle the Games every year. I watch them because I don't have a choice and I try to avoid having nightmares about them when I go back to bed." She bit her lip when she realized what she had said and she tried to figure out a way to get out of what she had just said. "I'm just kidding," she said with a flippant wave of her hand. "I'm rooting for Cato and I'm just waiting patiently for him to come home to me."

Laurel looked as though she wanted to say more, but the finality in Briar's tone had told her that the interview was now over.

* * *

Author's Note:  
First I would like to apologize for making you guys wait so long for this chapter.  
School has been pretty hectic. But I hope that you guys liked this chapter!  
You should **review** to let me know.  
Thanks to all of you that have reviewed, added this story to your alerts lists, and added it to your favorites lists.  
Your support is AMAZING. So thank you for that. **thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!  
**Once again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.  
I'll see you back here soon.  
Hugs and kisses,  
Chloe Jane.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hunger Games_ or any of the recognizable characters. I do however, own Briar Greenlaw, so do what you will with that.

Notes: Played around with some facts and timing in this chapter, I hope you don't mind. (Also borrowed Cato's last line from the movie although it wasn't in the books. It's just so ... redeeming, I had to give my baby his moment.)

Just as a warning ... this is the end. I cried a bit while I wrote it, so you guys might want to read it with a box of tissues, if you're easy criers like I am that is.

* * *

The explosion is the first thing they see the next morning when the broadcast begins. Briar was thankful that the Game Makers seemed to understand that none of the viewers wanted to sit through a recap of what had happened the day before. They could all remember. And they were anxiously awaiting to see who had died. Briar had heard rumors that three cannons had been fired the day before, she hoped that none of them were for Cato. Because as confident as she had been during her interview, she still wasn't sure. The girl from District 12 had proven to be extremely skilled and possibly deadly. The last thing Briar wanted was for Cato to meet her one-on-one because as mush faith as she had in her boyfriend, part of her worried that the brunette girl could beat him.

The girl in is thrown back by the force of the explosion. Her leg has been injured along with her ears. She looks around frantically before trying to stand up and walk back toward the woods. She falls and Briar smiles. She won't be able to get away. And even if she does manage to drag herself into the woods she'll leave a trail of blood behind her. The Careers will easily be able to follow her into the woods, and since she's injured it won't be hard to end her. She groans when the girl seems to think along the same lines as her and pulls the hood of her jacket over her head so that it can soak up the blood. Briar shakes her head, the girl is smarter than she gave her credit for. That makes her angry, usually she would be thrilled for a smart Tribute from one of the outlying Districts - it would make for a fairer, more interesting fight. But Cato was in the arena this year and the last thing she wanted was some intelligent Tribute from District 12 threatening his chances of coming home. This girl needed to be taken care of.

But she wasn't. She managed to crawl away into the woods just as the Careers made it back to their camp, drawn forward by the sounds of the explosions. Gunnar laughed next to her as Briar threw her hand over her face and shook her head. Cato had been the first of the Careers to make it out of the woods. And she wasn't surprised when he began to throw a tantrum. She couldn't blame him for being angry. But she could blame him for letting it get the best of him. He had never been able to control his anger as well as she could. He ripped some of his hair out and dropped to the ground, banging his fists against it. Briar shook his head and prayed that his behavior wouldn't lose him any sponsors. There was no doubt in her mind that the explosion had gained the girl from 12 quite a few new sponsors and the last thing she wanted was for the girl to have even more of an advantage.

Looking at it objectively, the explosion wasn't necessarily a game changer anyway. The Careers were stupid for stockpiling so much of it and not carrying around more food in their packs, but they had enough sponsors that food wouldn't be hard to come by for long. Once the boy from District 3 had determined that all of the mines had been blown the Careers began to investigate to see if anything had survived the attack. Hardly anything had. Cato noticed this instantly and turned on 3 in a matter of seconds. The boy barely had time to turn around and take two steps before Cato was behind him, his strong arms wrapped around his neck and with one swift movement he had broken the boy's neck.

Briar let out a soft sigh, "He's beautiful isn't he?" she breathed softly, turning to look at Gunnar. He smiled down at her and shrugged, not about to say that he thought his older brother was beautiful. Deadly maybe, skilled definitely, but he would not agree to beautiful. He liked that Briar thought he was though. It was nice to know that she was that devoted to his brother. Cato was very lucky to have her. And when he got back from the Games Gunnar would make sure that his brother knew just how lucky he was.

After the boy's body had been collected the broadcast seems to speed ahead through the night. It shows Katniss hiding in the woods, struggling to keep away from the Careers despite the fact that she obviously cannot hear out of her left ear, the Careers hunting the woods for her (Cato was absolutely sure that Katniss had been responsible for the explosion, and the little girl from 11, Rue, trying to hide as well. While the Careers didn't know that she was in part responsible for the explosion she would still be killed if they caught her. Briar waited anxiously, there were still two cannon shots that were unaccounted for. She hoped that Cato was not one of them.

By mid afternoon the viewers knew who had died. Little Rue had gotten trapped in a snare, one that Marvel had set up in the trees days ago when the Careers realized that the girl from 12 was sleeping in them. As the Careers hunted for Katniss Marvel broke away from the group to go check his nets. The poor little girl was a goner, there was no way that she was going to survive this. Briar leaned against Gunnar's shoulder, needing some comfort. While she would never root for a Tribute that was not Cato she had to admit that she had gotten attached to the small girl from District 11. She was so young and hopeful, it was going to hurt to watch her die. Gunnar wrapped his arm around her shoulders, sensing that she needed a hug, but he didn't say anything. She was grateful for that.

It didn't take Marvel long to find the young girl. She had been running away from him when she got caught in a net. A small box appeared on the bottom of the screen showing the Careers stringing almost invisible nets throughout the woods. This could have happened at any point throughout the Games, the Game Makers just hadn't shown it to the viewers because it wouldn't be interesting unless they worked and caught someone. They were showing it now because not only had it caught the little girl, Rue, but she would serves as a lure for Katniss. She screamed as Marvel approached her and her scream was answered a few moments later by a yell from Katniss as she made her way to the trap. Briar's hands balled into fists, her fingernails digging into her skin in an attempt to keep her from screaming at the screen. As much as she knew that Cato wanted to kill Katniss she hoped that Marvel would do it. She knew that Cato could kill Marvel, she was beginning to worry that Cato would be no match for Katniss. She and everyone else in the District, possibly the country, had obviously underestimated the girl. Who was to say that Cato wouldn't make the same mistake?

Briar watches with wide eyes as the screen is split in two, one portion showing Rue trapped in the net with Marvel and his spear approaching her while the other portion shows Katniss running through the trees, quickly approaching the clearing. Whether it is planned or not Marvel waits to embed his spear in the small girl's chest until Katniss has broken through, into the clearing. Briar has the briefest moment to be thankful that Marvel did not make the small girl suffer, that her death would not last too long before one of Katniss' arrows flies and embeds itself in his neck. Briar groans and shakes her head as she watches the stupid boy pull the arrow out of his neck, the move would have worked had he been shot in his lower leg or an arm. but by pulling the arrow out of his neck he will only die faster, she turned away from the screen, not wanting to see the boy choke on his own blood. Gunnar watched her for a moment before he shook his head and turned back to the screen. "You really were never one for gore were you?" he asked her out of the corner of his mouth, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to her.

"Pacifist by nature," Briar said with a soft nod. She sent Gunnar a sideways glance at the incredulous look on his face as he glanced back at her. Gunnar was two years younger than she was, but he had seen her at the training center and she had never looked like a pacifist to him in there. She always looked ruthless - fearless, strong, and ruthless.

He snorted, "Yeah," he said with a nod. "A pacifist who has mastered almost every weapon in the training center and can take down most of the instructors without even trying. I can see how a little blood might bother you."

Briar sighed as she turned to look at Gunnar full on. She was making a point to avoid watching the screen. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Katniss had reached the small girl. She hand untangled her from the net and appeared to be singing to her as she strung flowers through her hair. "These are real people, Gunnar," she said softly as the Game Makers seemed to realize that what Katniss was doing was dangerously close to forming a bond between Districts and cut quickly to the redhead from District 5. "This is real blood. Sure, people get hurt in the training center, I'm no stranger to that. And sure, we fight each other. But we've never set out to kill each other. While I'm in the training center sizing up an opponent, I'm looking for weak spots, I'm looking for a way to _eliminate_ them. But at the end of the spar they're fine and I help them off the mat and we laugh about it when we go to eat lunch. It's all play there. It's not real."

Gunnar stared at her with wide eyes for a moment before he glanced around to make sure that no one else had heard her near traitorous rant. "It's just play, Bri?" he asked, not needing to warn her about watching what she said, Briar was already well aware of the potential punishment for speaking like she had, she already regretted what she had said. "What the hell do you think you're training for?" Gunnar continued. He pointed to the screen that, as if to help illustrate his point was focused on Cato as he and Clove, the remaining Careers, hunted the woods for Katniss, "Does that look like _play_ to you?"

Briar bites back the response that it must look like play to someone since it is named _the Hunger Games_ and instead schools her face into a blank mask, making it impossible for anyone to read her emotions. "I know it's not play," she said softly, moving closer to Gunnar so that they could whisper even softer than they had been previously doing. "I'm not stupid. I know that. But it's never been this close to me, never really been a concern before. I knew what we were training for, I knew it happened every year, but this is the first year that it has honestly felt," she paused, searching for the right word, one that would make Gunnar understand. "This is the first time that it has actually felt real. This is the first year that I stand to lose something."

Gunnar looked down at her, sympathy shining in his eyes and he nodded. "I know this is hard for you," he said, his voice softening with his face as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I understand that. And I know that you are under a lot of stress and that it's unfair of me to put anymore stress on you, but," he paused and glanced over her head, making sure that no one was paying any attention to them. "Cato asked me to take care of you. And you make it very hard to do that when you keep running your mouth and saying things that you shouldn't say. Do I need to remind you have what happens to people that talk the way you do sometimes? Do I need to remind you that people are listening?"

And Briar shook her head. Because that was one thing that she did not need to be reminded of. That was one thing that she understood perfectly. That was one thing that she knew completely, probably better than Gunnar himself. She and Cato had learned that truth two years ago at the training center. And it was a lesson she wasn't likely to forget any time soon.

_They were at lunch when it started. Briar and Cato had been separated all day; Cato had been working with spears while Briar had been learning about natural poisons and medicines. Most of their days were like this, they would be lucky if they were in the same lesson in the afternoon, but they always had lunch together. Briar and her friend Wren Allardyce had just sat down at their usual table when Magnus started his rant. _

_This was not the first time Magnus had spoken out against the Capitol, President Snow, the PeaceKeepers, or the Games, but usually he was quieter about it. Or at least smart enough not to do it in the middle of the training center. Briar turned wide, confused eyes on Cato as the older boy began loudly express his dissent for the Games. Cato looked back at her for a moment before he glanced over her head, around them to see if any of the adult trainers had heard Magnus yet. He leaned back in, closer to Briar and Wren so that he could whisper to them. "Magnus was informed today that he is expected to volunteer for the Games this year."_

_Briar pulled back in surprise. "But the Games are still months away," she whispered. "And how do you know? Who's been selected to volunteer is supposed to stay a secret until the Reaping."_

"_Well it hasn't been much of a secret since he started yelling about it the moment he walked into the cafeteria," Cato whispered, his face caught between disapproving and bemused at the older boy's actions. "I think he's hoping that if he yells loud enough, if he makes enough noise they will decide to select someone else and they'll keep him out of the Games."_

_Wren made some noise about how that was ridiculous; that Magnus should be honored to have been selected to volunteer as Tribute. But Briar turned a skeptical eye on Magnus. She had always thought of him as a bit of an idiot, he was strong and a good fighter, but she had never believed that he had the brains to survive in the arena. "That could work in his favor," she said slowly, unwilling to give the boy too much credit. "They certainly wouldn't want to send someone who openly disapproves of the Capitol to the Games, especially not from a Career District. They might chose to select someone else."_

"_Or they might decide to get rid of him completely and then select someone else," Cato said, his voice grim as he looked back at Magnus. Briar shook her head, not wanting to imagine that as she instinctively curled closer to Cato. He subtly placed his hand on her leg and gave it a gentle squeeze before pulling away. He understood that his words painted a gruesome picture. Unbeknownst to the other Districts most of Panem's PeaceKeepers came from District 2. While this was good for most of District 2's citizens in that it meant that the Capitol was very kind and favorable to their District it also meant they knew most of the PeaceKeepers on a personal level. It made punishments and public deaths very hard and volatile situations. _

"_They wouldn't do that would they?" she breathed softly, looking over her shoulder for instructors that might be making their way over to Magnus. "He's the mayor's son!" _

"_Then he of all people should know that he shouldn't speak this way," Cato responded, his voice firm with no room for argument or sympathy as Magnus began to yell louder, his statements becoming more dangerous. Cato glanced over his shoulder, his eyes lighting on something that Briar couldn't see, when she tried to turn around he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Briar, I want you to go to the bathroom right now," he said, tone still stern, but concern flashing in his blue eyes. Briar started to argue, but Cato interrupted her. "Bri," he said, his eyes clear and sincere. "Please?"_

_And Briar couldn't argue with that if she had wanted to. So she stood up from the table and began to walk away out of the cafeteria, trying to ignore Magnus' rant from behind her. "And you are the ones that give them the power! Each year you train at this school to becoming killing machines for the Capitol's entertainment. You never fight it! Each year they send two of you into the arena and instead of fighting against it, instead of refusing to take part, you murder other children. They're called Tributes so that you can turn a blind eye to the fact that some of them are only twelve. They're not old enough to make decisions for themselves, let alone fight for their lives and yet you murder the, slaughter them and don't think twice about it. It is disgusting! When will we realize that all of this blood is as much on our hands as it is on the Capitol's?" _

"_Where do you think you're going?" a gruff voice asked Briar as a hand reached out and grabbed her shoulder, forcing her to come to a stop. Briar glanced up at the PeaceKeeper and told him that she was going to the bathroom, but he shook his head and shoved her gently toward one of the instructors. "Get her back to her seat," the man said. The instructor nodded, but Briar did not need their help getting back to her seat. She wasn't a child, she wrenched her arm out of the instructor's grasp and walked back to her seat next to Cato. _

_From their she had a prime seat to watch as the PeaceKeepers converged on Magnus. At first she thought that all they were going to do was take him away from the cafeteria before he poisoned the minds of the other children with his traitorous thoughts. But then one of the PeaceKeepers ordered that every one of the students at the training center be out on the front yard of the center in ten minutes so that they could make an example of Magnus. Briar glanced at Cato with wide eyes, suddenly reminded of his words 'or they might just get rid of him completely.' At first she had given little credence to the idea, but when she saw the grim set of Cato's mouth and the terse nod he gave her she knew that he had known he was right from the beginning. Magnus would never be coming back to the Training Center. _

_Like the sheep Magnus had accused them all of being the students allowed themselves to filed into several single file lines and ushered out of the cafeteria into the bright sunshine. Within ten minutes they were all standing in orderly lines in front of the training center with Magnus being held in front of them by two PeaceKeepers. Briar had hoped that she would find herself in a spot where she couldn't see what was going on, but luck was not on her side that day and she had a near perfect view of what was about to unfold before them. She closed her eyes as a third PeaceKeeper approached the older boy with a leather whip. "No," Cato breathed from beside her as he reached out and grabbed her hand. "Briar you have to open your eyes. You have to watch this or they will think you're a dissenter too. Open your eyes." Briar didn't want to, she wanted to refuse, but she knew that he was right so she forced her eyes open. _

_The whip was made out of several pieces of leather, Briar would later learn that there were four strips, each of which had three knots tied into them to cause extra punishment. The two PeaceKeepers on either side of Magnus tightened their grip on him so that he couldn't break free of them and run away while the third lifted the whip above his head, bending his body so that he could put as much force as possible behind the swing and began to whip the seventeen year old. The heavy whip was brought down again and again across Magnus' shoulders, back, and his legs. The first set of lashes did little more than to cut through the thin training uniform the boy wore. But as the lashes continued it began to hit skin. _

_Briar tried to turn away as she counted the lashes; one, two three, four. But Cato grabbed onto her hips and with an apologetic look in his eyes he gently forced her to turn back around and face forward. She could have sworn that she heard him whisper, "I am so sorry," as he did it. Once the whip had reached the skin they began to tear through it with each continuing blow. After twenty lashes Magnus' blood had begun to ooze from the capillaries and the veins in his skin. After thirty lashes it began to spurt from the arteries when the whip began to make contact with his muscles under the skin. After fifty lashes the skin on his back was hanging in long ribbons and his back was an unrecognizable torn and bleeding mess. The PeaceKeeper gave Magnus ten more lashes for 'good measure' before the other two PeaceKeepers let go of his arms and let him fall to the ground, a bleeding, sobbing mess. Briar would be surprised if he lived past the end of the day. _

_It was silent for a full minute, no one made a noise, everyone just stared at what used to be Magnus in surprise. And then someone started to scream. It wasn't until Cato had pulled Briar into his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her and muffling the sound that Briar realized the shrill scream had come from her. _

Briar shuddered at the memory. It wasn't a pleasant one, it wasn't one that she enjoyed thinking about. If only because she didn't like being reminded that she had allowed it to happen. She hadn't been the one with the whip in her hand, but she had stood there silently, counting the lashings and not speaking out as the PeaceKeeper beat Magnus to death. She hadn't tried to stop them because she had known that if she did she would be the one being whipped next. Instead she had watched, but tried not to see, wordlessly thankful that she was not the one to have angered the PeaceKeepers.

As she looked around the citizens of District Two watching the Games now she realized that they were all alike. She was no better than they were. Here she was rooting for Cato, and slightly for Clove, watching all the other Tributes and knowing that they would all have to die so that her Tribute could come home. No one was willing to risk their comfortable life to speak out against the Capitol. They were all monsters, every citizen of Panem who didn't try to fight, every Tribute. Every single one of them were monsters, hoping that their favorite monster would come out of the arena alive.

Cato's face flashed in her head and she shook her head. She was wrong, Cato couldn't be a monster. And the little girl, Rue, she wasn't a monster. And the crippled boy from 10, Peeta from 12. None of them were monsters. Not even Cato's biggest threats Thresh and Katniss. Tributes were the only people in the country who were not monsters. They didn't fight and kill because they wanted to, but because they needed to in order to survive. Sure, they could refuse to fight, but like the fire from earlier that week the GameMakers would find ways to kill them if they tried to unite. They were the only innocent ones in the country. They had no choice, they were selected, trained, and then set free in the arena and forced to fight. They were all just trying to get home, to survive. What choice did they have?

They had no choices. Briar and those watching the Games were the ones with the choices. And yet they never made any. Like the day she had seen Magnus beaten to death they stood and watched and said nothing. Briar realized something, the Capitol was partially to blame for the Games and everything that came from them, but they weren't the only ones to blame. Everyone else in the country who didn't fight against the Capitol. They were the ones to blame. They were the ones at fault. Briar swallowed a lump in her throat when she realized that this was partially her fault. She could feel her breathing speed up. She was about to hyperventilate if she didn't get out of there soon. She glanced at Gunnar and he seemed to understand her because he nodded and grabbed her hand, gently pulling her through the crowd and toward outer edges of the square. He told the PeaceKeepers a small lie, that they were going to watch the Games at his house and then began to lead Briar through the streets. She broke free of him the moment they were out of sight of the PeaceKeepers and ran for the only place she would feel safe. Their field.

-.-.-.-.-

Briar managed to avoid the square and the Games for the next two days. She stayed buried under her blankets in her room while her brothers told everyone that asked that she had caught a summer cold and was watching the Games at their house. She wasn't watching the Games though, she could hear them as every television in Panem was automatically turned on during the Games and couldn't be turned off until the broadcast was finished. But the closest television was three rooms away from her so she couldn't hear anything but muffled noises. She did know that no cannons had been fired over the last two days which meant two things. First it meant that Peeta was somehow struggling through the infection he had in his leg. And secondly it meant that after Rue and Marvel's deaths the GameMakers and the Capitol had gotten their fill of blood and were planning something wicked. Briar wished that she wouldn't be around to find out what.

A noise caught her attention, the front door of her house flying open and banging against the wall as someone rushed in. Briar could hear them running up the stairs and had only a moment to worry that it was a PeaceKeeper and she was going to be punished for not watching the Games when Gunnar burst into her room. "Briar!" he yelled, forcing her to throw off her blankets and stare at the younger boy in surprise.

Had she been less surprised at his unexpected entrance she would noticed the beginnings of a grin threatening to take over his face and the way his eyes twinkled happily. But she could only think of one reason for why he would burst into her room during the Games. Cato. "Is he okay?" she asked him, launching herself out of her bed so that she could grab his arms and force him to look at her. "Is Cato all right? Did something happen to him? Please tell me he's not dead?" Gunnar shook his head. "Clove?" she asked him, moving down the short list of people she cared about. "Was it awful? Please tell me she didn't suffer!" Again Gunnar shook his head and it was then that Briar finally recognized the beginnings of a smile on his lips. She took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief. "Is it the girl from 12? Is she dead?" When Gunnar shook his head again she sighed, all patience gone. "Then tell me what the hell is going on Gunnar! Why are you here?"

"There's been a change in the rules," Gunnar said with a grin. "There can be two victors if they come from the same District. The girl from 12 is looking for the boy now, but with any luck he'll be dead by the time she finds him. And Cato and Clove are already together."

"They can both come home," Briar breathed, finally relaxing enough to let go of Gunnar's arms.

Gunnar gave her a confirming nod. "They can both come home."

_Cato was gentle with Briar in the days and weeks after Magnus' death. His touches were softer, his glances were more concerned, and his voice when he talked to her was smoother than she had ever heard. It was as if he was worried that if he talked too loudly or touched her like he used to she would break into a million pieces and he would lose her forever. Briar wanted to tell him to stop worrying about her, that nothing was going to change between them, she wanted to explain that she wasn't nearly as breakable as he seemed to think. But every time she tried the words got caught in her throat. _

_Because the honest answer was that she was as breakable as Cato thought. The honest answer was that Magnus haunted all of her nightmares. If she were to be honest with him she would admit that the only thing she ate was the few bites she forced down at lunch to keep him from worrying about her, that once she went home she couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't think because she was too busy thinking about what had happened to Magnus and that it was in part her fault because she didn't step forward to stop it. _

_She didn't tell him any of that because she didn't want him to worry any more about her than he already did. She didn't want him to be watching her constantly, waiting for her to stop functioning and start crying. What he was doing was bad enough and that already made her want to give in and cry. She wouldn't allow him to make her do that. She needed to be strong, the trainers and the PeaceKeepers were already watching her, worried that she sympathized with Magnus and that she was a problem that needed to be taken care of too. Breaking down in the middle of a training session or at the town square wouldn't do her any good. _

_But he noticed because he knew her. He knew everything about her from the way her face looked when she was suppressing a bad memory to what her body looked like when it was beginning to shut down on her. And more than that he knew what she needed more than she did. Which is why two weeks after Magnus had been killed he forced her to skip a training session and brought her to their field. She stood by their tree and waited, staring blankly at him and waiting for him to try to say something that would make her feel better. He had been trying all week, but nothing had worked yet. she wondered if he had anything left to give her. _

_When he finally opened his mouth he surprised her because what he had to say wasn't nice. "Magnus deserved that," he said, inspecting the dirt underneath his fingernails as if he not only spoke the truth, but that the truth was so boring, so normal that he couldn't even be bothered to pretend to care about it. Briar stared at him, eyes wide in surprise. Because gone was her sweet, caring boyfriend who only wanted to make her feel better and in his place was an angry young man that she had never seen before. He nodded, "He was an idiot for saying what he said. He had no right to talk about the Capitol like that. They've been nothing but good to the Districts and we have no reason to question them or to believe that they are doing anything but the best for us."_

_Briar shook her head, she couldn't believe she was hearing this. Cato had never been vocal about his dislike of the Capitol like Magnus, but she had always sensed a quiet anger in him. He resented them for what they did, for the danger they put Briar in if nothing else. She was surprised to hear this come from him, he had to be joking for some reason, but when she looked up at him his eyes were nothing but ernest. She shook her head again, stopping only when Cato sneered at her, "You don't agree?" he asked, his tone teasing. "You don't think that Magnus was a complete fool for what he did?" he took a step forward, crowding into her personal space. "You don't think that he was asking for what he got? You don't think that not only did he deserve what he got, but that Ostro and Balthar were being kind to him by not turning him over to the Capitol?"_

_Briar broke at the names of the PeaceKeepers who had killed Magnus. She could feel the tears spring to her eyes as she screamed and balled her hands into fists so that she could hit Cato repeatedly in the chest. "You're a monster!" she screamed, daring to look up into his blue eyes so that she could glare at him. "You are disgusting and a coward! I don't care how stupid you think Magnus was he was much braver than you because at least he had the courage to stand up and speak out about what is going on in this country." She continued to hit his chest as she sobbed, her voice softening until it was barely a whisper, but her fists never slowed. "The Games are cruel! And you're just as cruel if you think for even a moment that the Capitol actually gives a damn about the Districts. You're cruel and you're a fool."_

_Cato let her sob and hit him for another minute or two before he caught her fists and pulled her closer to him so that he could wrap his arms around her. It was a sign of how far gone Briar was that she let him hold her even after all of the things he had said to her. "It's okay," he soothed, running his hands through her hair and placing a kiss on her temple. "Let it out. You've kept this in for way too long. You should have told me how you felt weeks ago. Why did you try to keep this all in, Bri?" He pulled away from her enough that he could cup her face in his hands and stare down at her. "You can be so foolish sometimes, Briar Patch," he said softly as he drew her face closer to his again so that he could kiss her forehead. "So, so, foolish," he continued. _

_And it was then that everything clicked for Briar. He hadn't meant a single thing that he had said. He simply realized that she needed an outlet for her pain and anger and he had provided her with one. He had given her a safe outlet for her anger, one that she wouldn't have to worry about him turning her over to the PeaceKeepers or the Capitol. He had pushed her and goaded her until she had broken because he knew that that was what she needed. She needed to break. She had been trying to hold herself together for too long and as hard as it was for him to watch her break down he had done it because he loved her and he wanted to take care of her. _

_Her hands fisted in his shirt as she glanced up at him and blinked some of her tears out of her eyes. He looked down at her and nodded, silently telling her that her silent suspicions were true. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss onto his lips before she pulled away. "I didn't mean it," she said softly, looking up at him. "Any of it. I was talking about myself, I was angry at myself for not trying to stop it. I didn't mean for any of it to be directed at you."_

_Cato glanced down at her, his blue eyes filled with understanding and he allowed one of his lips to quirk up in a gentle smile. "Yeah you did," he said softly. "But that's okay. I've been feeling the same way. And it wasn't easy to deal with because you kept looking at me with your own accusations in your eyes. I should have done something, I should have tried to force Magnus to be quiet, I should have spoken up when the PeaceKeepers were beating him to death, I shouldn't have tried to force you to watch. I was just so scared."_

"_What?" Briar asked, surprised at this new piece of information. She hadn't thought that Cato was afraid of anything. It was an emotion she had believed that her boyfriend wasn't capable of feeling. But here he was, standing in front of her open and honest and admitting to being afraid of something. _

"_They tortured Magnus to death because they had no other means of controlling him," Cato pointed out. "With me it's different. We've managed to fly under the radar for now, but someone would let it slip that we were dating, they'd be trying to gain favor or something like that. And they would realize that the best way to teach me a lesson, to make me conform would be to threaten you. I can't and won't let anyone hurt you, Briar. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. So even though watching it made me feel sick I didn't do anything, couldn't do anything because I had to protect you." He leaned down and pressed his lips against Briar's in another chaste kiss. "I will always protect you, Briar Patch, always."_

-.-.-.-.-

Briar could still hear Cato's voice in her head over the next few days. He had made her a lot of promises over their time together in District 2. He had promised to always protect her, to always love her, and to come back to her. As the number of Tributes began to dwindle she knew that his ability to keep any of these promises to her all hinged on one Tribute, Katniss from District 12.

The next three days were hard. Nothing bad happened and Briar realized that the GameMakers were biding their time, they were planning something very bad. With each calm minute on screen Briar found herself worrying more and more for Cato and Clove. The cameras took this time to catch up with all of the Tributes. The boy from District 11 was still living in the meadow, not out to attack anyone, but he was running out of food, he would starve soon if he didn't get any food. The redhead from 5 was doing a little better, she had plenty of food, but she had lost her only weapon if it ever came down to a fight between her and one of the other Tributes she would be killed easily. Katniss had found Peeta, they were living in a cave in the woods, they didn't seem to need food, but Peeta's wound had become so infected that he would die if he didn't get medicine. The two Tributes that were doing the best were Cato and Clove. Their sponsors have been good to them so far, they have kept them well-fed despite the fact that Katniss blew up all of their food and supplies.

If Briar had thought that she was heartbroken by Rue's death it was nothing compared to how she felt over the next three days. Because the Tributes began to open up during the relative calm. Katniss and Peeta were hard to watch because with each day it became clearer that he was going to die, she was going to lose him. And as much as Briar wanted to hate the girl she could not wish that on anyone, didn't even want it for herself. But she and Katniss were in the same boat, they were both watching the men they loved get closer and closer to a possible death. Their circumstances were slightly different for while Katniss had the chance to try to stop Peeta's death if she failed she would have to hold him as he died. Briar had no control over what happened to Cato, but she was further removed from the situation which could make it easier for her to deal with. Deep down Briar knew that it wouldn't though, she would never be able to deal with Cato's death. But she found herself wishing that Peeta wouldn't die though, she didn't like to think about what would happen if they one thing that seemed to keep Katniss grounded and connected to her home died. The girl would be unstoppable.

Cato and Clove were just as heartbreaking in their own way. Now that there was a possibility that they could both go home they had stopped looking at each other as potential enemies and had started to look at each other as true allies. They began to get to know each other over the next three days of rain in a way they had tried to avoid earlier in the Games. And it was now, for the first time in the arena that Cato really opened up about Briar. "When we go home," he started one day as the two sat under a makeshift tent made out of several tarps tied to some trees, Briar's hear soared at his word choice, _when_ not _if_. "What are you going home to?" Clove smiled at him and shrugged, shaking her head slightly. Cato reached over and gently bumped the girl's shoulder with his fist, Briar smiled at this move, it was a familiar one, she had seen Cato do it to his little brother countless times, it warmed her heart to see that he was quickly establishing the same kind of relationship with Clove. "Come on," he teased, "A pretty, smart girl like you? There's got to be someone you want to see when we get home."

Clove flushed and looked as though she was having an internal struggle, as if she wasn't sure whether she should tell him or not. "I've always kept my eye on your brother," she said softly, biting her lip softly and glancing around them as if searching for the cameras and hoping that the GameMakers wouldn't broadcast this confession. "I know that he's younger than me, but he's interesting, and he's smart. I've always wanted to talk to him."

"I think you want to do more than talk to him," Cato teased softly, but he didn't say anything about her choice. He approved, his younger brother would be lucky to get a girl like Clove. Clove glared at him before turning the question back on him.

"I know that you can't wait to get home to _Briar Patch_," she teased, ducking out of the way with a soft laugh as Cato jokingly reached out to hit her. "You love her?" she asked him.

Cato nodded instantly, there was no reason to hesitate. It was obvious to everyone how he felt about Briar now. And he figured that she wouldn't get angry at him for admitting it now. He had made it this far, he had proved to the Sponsors that he was tough, he figured that he had earned the chance to let everyone in Panem know just how lucky he was to have her and just how much he loved her. "I do," he said with a nod. Clove nodded and pointed out that Briar had always looked unstoppable at the training center. "She's damn near unstoppable," Cato said with a nod, "And beautiful while she does it. She would have dominated the Games if you hadn't volunteered for her."

"And if you hadn't been here," Clove pointed out softly. "She wouldn't have been able to dominate if she spent all of her time worrying about you." Cato nodded because the younger girl had a point. "The two of you were the reason why I never let anyone, especially boys, get close to me," Clove said casually. Cato raised his eyebrows, silently prompting the small girl to continue because her statement made no sense to him. She sighed, "You guys care too much about each other. That can be dangerous, I saw it sometimes in the training center and I knew that I was never going to let me care for someone that much because it would put me in danger. If something happened to them I would be ruined, I can't risk something like that happening."

"It's so much more than that," Cato said fiercely, surprising not only Clove, but probably every viewer in Panem. "It's not just about caring so much about someone or being ruined if something happened to them. It's about how you feel about them when they're around, how the made you feel when the two of you were together. That's what it's about." Clove asked him how Briar made him feel and Briar found herself holding her breath as she waited for Cato's answer. He stared off into the distance for a moment, his eyes wistful as if he was imagining something, imagining someone - Briar. "She makes me feel alive."

-.-.-.-.-

As it turned out the GameMakers had been planning. The moment Seneca Crane had announced that there would be a feast the next day Briar knew that the Games were almost over. The Tributes from the remaining Districts all needed something and the GameMakers were going to give it to them, but first they would need to arrive at the same place as all the other Tributes. It was a way to force all of the Tributes together in one place, to make them fight. The GameMakers were getting bored. They would have the feast the next morning and if that didn't kill off quite a few Tributes they would find a way to end the Games completely within the next two or three days. Briar's heart beat rapidly in her chest when she realized that it wouldn't be long before Cato came home to her. All he had Clove had to do was to survive the next three days at the most and they would both come home.

The next morning when she forced herself out of her house and back to the square there were rumors of one cannon being fired during the night or the morning. That meant that there were four Tributes left, Briar crossed her fingers as she took her place next to Gunnar, silently praying that Cato and Clove had both made it out of the feast alive. They didn't get to find out who died right away. First the GameMakers showed them past shots of all of the Tributes, making it clear what they all needed to take away from the feast. Thresh needed food, the girl from 5 needed a weapon of some kind, Katniss and Peeta needed medicine or Peeta would die, Cato and Clove were a bit difficult, they didn't need food or weapons or medicine but in their clips Clove mentioned how it would be nice to have armor that would protect them from Katniss's arrows, it had become clear to the Careers that a bow and an arrow had been how Katniss had received an eleven for a training score.

And then they had to sit through a recap of what had happened the night before. It was brief, most of the Tributes had gone to sleep early so that they could wake up early and move to the Cornucopia before dawn. None of them seemed as though they wanted to fight, they were all hoping to get there before everyone else and simply grab their stuff and run. The redhead from 5 was smart, she woke up in the middle of the night and hid inside the Cornucopia to wait for dawn, that was something no one would expect. And then they watched as Katniss drugged Peeta so that he wouldn't try to follow her to the Cornucopia. And then she too fell asleep, waking shortly before dawn so that she could travel to the feast as well. Cato and Clove had a clear advantage because they were the only District that would have two Tributes attending the feast, they devised a plan in which Cato would wait in the woods and try to kill either Katniss or Thresh as they left the feast while Clove would grab their prize as she was faster. Briar shook her head, she didn't like that they had split up, but there was nothing for her to do about it, this was past footage, the feast had already happened so even if she were able to communicate with the Tributes somehow it would be too late.

Instead she simply had to wait with bated breath to see who wold make it out of the Feast alive. Katniss is one of the first to arrive in the clearing around the Cornucopia. She starts to run toward the bags but stops when the redhead from 5 runs out of the Cornucopia and grabs her bag. Briar smiled gleefully at the fact that this cost Katniss time, the screen had been split into four and she could clearly see that Thresh and Clove were closing in on the Cornucopia, Katniss's pause could be enough to make it impossible to get away. This could be the end of the threat from District 12. Briar was annoyed that the girl from 5 hadn't taken anyone else's bags. She had said she was smart and quick during the interviews. But if she was really smart she would have taken some of the other bags to put her opponents at a disadvantage.

Katniss shook herself out of her stupor and began to make her way toward the bags again. The entirety of District 2 breaks out into cheers as a knife comes whizzing through the air toward her right. The cheer quiets a bit as Katniss deflects the knife and shoots an arrow, aiming for Clove's heart. But the girl is fast and she turns out of the way, causing the arrow to hit her upper left arm. The wound won't be too bad and Clove throws with her right arm, but it's enough to slow her down a bit as she has to stop to pull the arrow out of her arm and check the severity of the wound. The citizens of District 2 start to chatter enthusiastically, it does not matter if Clove is wounded, once she kills Katniss she can use the medicine to heal her arm. The general feeling in the square is that everything will be okay in a matter of minutes.

Katniss gets to the table and her backpack, but no further. The District cheers as Clove's second knife hits its target, opening a gash straight through Katniss' eyebrow and distracting the girl enough that she doesn't notice Clove running toward her until it's too late and Clove has run into her, knocked her to the ground and straddled her, using her knees to pin down the taller girl's shoulders. Briar nods in approval, it's a good hold, Clove had trained well. "Where's your boyfriend, District 12?" she asks as the screens fill with the image of the two of them, no longer tracking the other Tributes. "Still hanging on?" The people of District 2 laugh as Katniss lies and says that he is in the woods, ready to kill Clove, the laughter gets louder as Katniss calls Peeta's name and Clove punches her in the windpipe. "Liar," Clove said with an almost pretty grin. "He's nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. You've probably got him strapped up in some tree while you try to keep his heart going. What's in the pretty little backpack? The medicine for Lover Boy? Too bad he'll never get it."

Briar flinched as she watched the scene going on in front of her. It wasn't that she didn't want Katniss to die because a very large part of her wanted to be cheering with the rest of District 2. It was just that this Clove, the Clove in the Games was so different from the Clove that Briar had known of in the District. Clove had always been goal oriented and deadly, but she had never seemed cruel up until this point. She watched with wide, horrified eyes as Clove selected a knife and resumed taunting Katniss. "I promised Cato if he let me have you, I'd give the audience a good show." Katniss tried to knock her off of her, but Clove had picked a good place to straddle her, there was no way that she was going to be thrown off. "Forget it, District 12. We're going to kill you. Just like we did your pathetic little ally ... what was her name? The one who hopped around in the trees? Rue? Well first Rue, then you, and then I think we'll just let nature take care of Lover Boy. How does that sound? Now, where to start?"

All of District 2 began to cheer, sure that this was going to be the end of their Tributes' biggest threat in the arena. Briar finally allows herself to hope that this will be the end of Katniss when the cheering stops almost instantly. They hadn't seen him because the image on the screen had been devoted to Katniss and Clove, so it seemed that out of no where Thresh had shown up and ripped Clove off of Katniss. He held her, dangling off the ground for a moment before he flipped her over and flung her on the ground. "What'd you do to that little girl?" he yelled, causing everyone in the square to withdraw slightly from the screen, as if they were worried that he would come after them next. "You kill her?" Clove tried to tell him that she hadn't, that it wasn't her as she tried to back away from Thresh, but he wasn't having any of it. "You said her name. I heard you. You kill her? You cut her up like you were going to cup up this girl here?" Clove starts to say no again, but when she sees the rock in Thresh's hand, one about the size of a loaf of bread she loses it and calls loud and shrill for Cato.

Briar's heart breaks when she hears Cato's answering call. He's close enough to hear Clove, close enough to start running toward the Cornucopia, but he's too far away. He's too far away to help her. He seems to realize this, Briar can tell from the broken quality to his voice. He's going to have to accept the fact that there is nothing he can do, no matter how fast he runs Clove will be dead by the time he makes it to the clearing. Those in the square haven't seemed to realize this yet, they start cheering again as if they believe that Cato will make it to the clearing in time to kill both Katniss and Thresh and save Clove. Briar shakes her head, it's not going to turn out that way, she already knows who the cannon shot was for. Those in the District stop cheering as Thresh brings the rock down on Clove's head just once. There's no blood, but a very obvious dent in her skull, she's still breathing and whimpering but it's obvious that she's going to die. The square is deathly silent as Thresh turns toward Katniss, moving toward her as if he is going to kill her too.

But he doesn't. Briar stares in wide eyed disbelief as Thresh does something that has never been done this late in the Games. He lets Katniss go because of what she had done for Rue. "Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me, we're even then. No more owed. You understand?" Katniss understood, she looked grateful as she began to stand up. Briar felt conflicting emotions welling up inside of her. She wanted to be impressed by the fact that Thresh had let her go, saved her life but at the same time she was angry at him for not playing the Games correctly, for not killing her when he had the chance. Both of these emotions disappeared, leaving her filled with an intense heartache when Cato arrived on the edge of the clearing and saw Clove's body. The pain in his voice is more evident now as he calls her name and begins to run toward Clove, forgetting that his enemies are still in the clearing and caring only about the girl.

Cato reaches Clove just as Katniss and Thresh reach opposite ends of the clearing. Katniss is running slower, injured, while Thresh has grabbed both bags from the table and headed back toward his field. Cato's sharp eyes had watched both of them run, but at a pain-filled moan from Clove he had instantly dropped down to the ground next to her, only holding his spear so that he could defend himself if someone were to try to attack the two of them. The camera zooms in as he reaches out a gentle hand and places it on Clove's cheek, "Clove," he said softly, "you need to stay with me. Please stay with me. We're both supposed to go home remember? You're supposed to come home with me and tell my brother that you _find him interesting_," he continued, using her own words. Briar swears that she sees Clove crack a small smile at that. "Please stay with me Clove," he said softly, "we're supposed to go home." His voice cracks at the end and Briar knows that he's realized that it's futile, there is nothing that can save Clove now, not even sponsors. And so he changes his tactic instead of begging her to stay with him he begins to tell her about home, all the beautiful and happy things he can think of about District 2. Tears well in Briar's eyes as she hears him tell her about their field, the tree, and the daisies that grow there in the summer. As her breathing begins to slow he grabs her hand in his and begins to tell her about what their life would be like when they got home, he told her about how they would be neighbors in Victor's Village and how she was going to see so much of Briar that she would love her too. "She'd really like you," he said softly, gently squeezing Clove's hand. "How could she not, you've taken such good care of me here." Briar found herself nodding along with what Cato was saying, she did like Clove. He told her about their wedding, "It's going to be in the summer, in the evening and she's going to wear daisies in her hair. She'll look so beautiful. And you'll be there," he added with a firm nod. "And as tough as you like to pretend you are you'll be crying with joy along with everyone else because you'll be happy for me." He leaned closer to her so that he could whisper in her ears, "Because we're friends Clove, we're more than friends," he paused. "We're family. And I love you, Clove."

That's the last thing Clove ever hears. And Briar is happy for that, the girl needed to know that she was loved. She hoped that the girl knew that love came from her and everyone else in the District as well. She feels Gunnar tense up beside her and she turns her head to see Clove's family slowly making their way out of the clearing. Her normally strong father was openly crying as he guided his wife out of the square with a gentle hand on the small of her back. They didn't make eye contact with anyone, didn't stop for anyone, she wondered if they even realized that the crowd was parting for them or if they were only aware of their pain. She gripped Gunnar's hand as she watched them make their way past them. She hoped that they would make it out of the clearing before ... Clove's mother sobbed loudly and crumpled on the ground at the sound of the cannon. Clove's father quickly bent down and scooped his sobbing wife up in his arms so that he could carry her the rest of the way home. Briar turned back to the screen just in time to see Cato make the decision to go after Thresh in the field.

-.-.-.-.-

The next day Cato goes after Thresh in ernest. Despite the rain he goes into the field in search of Thresh. It's dangerous, everyone in the District seems to be aware of this because there is no cheering, only silence, nervous silence. Cato seems to realize this too, because he goes cautiously, he knew that Thresh had the advantage in the field, he had been living in it from the beginning of the Games. But underneath his calm, cautious exterior there is a very obvious rage. Something in him broke when Clove died. This is as much taking out and enemy and retrieving his bag from the feast as t is revenge for Clove's death. He wanted revenge which is why he chose to go after Thresh instead of the injured Katniss who would have been an easier kill. He wanted the next death in the arena to be Thresh's in some sort of justice for Clove's death. Briar glanced around the District, the only real justice for Clove's death would be if someone did something about the Capitol, if someone ended the Hunger Games once and for all.

He found Thresh in the late afternoon while Katniss and Peeta were talking about how much they loved each other and when they had first realized how they felt. Briar knew for a fact that she and Cato could be just as sickeningly sweet and in love but these two bothered her. They were in the middle of the Games, Cato could die trying to revenge Clove's death and these two were ... playing house in a cave. It disgusted her that they got so much screen time just so that they could kiss and tell each other how much they meant to each other. But the Capitol loved a good story and these two were definitely giving them one. The cameras cut away from the two in the cave as soon as Cato found Thresh.

The boy from 11 was waiting for Cato. He almost grinned when Cato found him and he tauntingly patted the bag labeled _2 _he told Cato that he knew that he would come. He asked him how Clove was doing. Briar flinched at the dark angry look that took over Cato's face. She had never seen him so angry before. Part of her expected him to simply run at Thresh, no plan in place, but Cato was more intelligent than that. He had his spear, an axe, and many of Clove's knives and all Thresh had was his rock. He planned to fight from a distance. The fight didn't last much longer than thirty minutes. Clove had spent some time teaching Cato how to use her throwing knives because he had better aim that Briar remembered from the training center. This being said Thresh did manage to get some hits on Cato. He had a gash on his ribs on the left side and would have a deep tissue bruise on the back of his thigh that would take weeks to heal, but he had managed to stay out of reach of any of Thresh's deadlier blows. And with a final yell he had managed to pierce Thresh through the stomach with his spear. He wasn't taking chances this time though, he turned the spear before wrenching it out of Thresh's body, opening the gash up further and then he stabbed the wounded boy again as he tried to crawl away. He repeated the process five times before he was satisfied. He grabbed his back from the feast and what was left of the food in Thresh's before he turned and walked away. He didn't even wait for the cannon shot, but when it was fired the camera's flashed back to Cato who was making his way toward the lake, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

The GameMakers were quiet after the Feast and Briar knew that could only mean one thing. With four Tributes left the Games were almost done. They were making plans to bring all of the Tributes together in one place, to force a fight and a winner. Cato was so close to coming home that Briar could already imagine his arms wrapped around her again. She could believe that within three days, at the most, Cato would be named the victor and she would have to wait little more than a week for him to come back home to her. She was sad that he couldn't bring Clove, she had allowed her hopes to get up when the GameMakers had announced that there could be two victors from the same District. But now all she could hope for was that Cato would be declared the winner.

The next day went quickly. Cato retreated to the woods to search for Katniss and Peeta while the two left the relative safety of their cave to hunt. Briar had the distinct feeling that they were never going to go back to the cave. While they were hunting Peeta was too loud, he covered up the sounds of the redhead from District 5 who was following them. And they split up, he gathered berries while she hunted. He didn't even notice that the redhead had stolen some of their food some berries and cheese. But Katniss had when they met back up. She also noticed that some of the berries Peeta had gathered were poisonous. She wasn't surprised when Peeta got his second kill of the Games. And Briar wasn't surprised that with three Tributes left the GameMakers began to act, to force a fight. The water in the streams near the cave dried up, the pond dried up as well. The only place where the water did not disappear from was the lake. Judging by the way the three remaining Tributes were sweating the temperature inside the arena was high, they were herding all of the Tributes toward the lake for a final fight that would force a winner. They brought night on faster as well, making Briar wonder if they had more planned than simply forcing a fight. The feeling she got as she watched what was going on on screen made her think that the GameMakers had one final _surprise_ for the Tributes and that it wasn't going to be a good one. Cato has more water than Katniss and Peeta so they make it to the lake before he does and the screen is filled with the image of them sitting side by side next to the lake, Katniss whistles a tune to the Mockingjays and they sing it back to her. It's too peaceful, she thinks, the calm before a storm. Something big is about to happen and they are in no way prepared to deal with it. A moment later the image on the screen changes and it shows Cato, he's running as fast as he can through the woods, he's obviously being chased by something judging by the way he continually looks over his shoulder, but the GameMakers won't let the citizens in the Districts see what he's running from.

He breaks through the ring of trees around the plain surrounding the Cornucopia and the lake and Peeta and Katniss stand up in alarm. She shoots an arrow at him, but it bounces off the armor he had gotten from the Feast. It would have been comical if Cato hadn't clearly been so terrified of whatever he was running from. He runs past the two other Tributes, ignoring them in his quest for the Cornucopia. Katniss looks toward the woods and her eyes widen in fear and surprise when she catches sight of what Cato is running from and then both she and Peeta are running after Cato toward the Cornucopia. The GameMakers still haven't allowed the viewers in the Districts a complete look at what is going on but they catch a glimpse. Briar catches sight of a large wolf like creature, there are more following it but there is something eerie and sick about them. Their fur is different colors and textures. Some have straight fur, some have curly, some have black fur and some have fur so pale and white that it would be considered blonde if it belonged to a human. Her brain pauses on that word, _human_, and she realizes that she has caught sight of some of the most terrifying Muttations she has ever seen.

All three of the Tributes are on top of the Cornucopia now and Briar knows that this is it. This is where a winner will be decided, either by a fight on the top of the Cornucopia or by one of the Muttations waiting below it. Gunnar reaches for Briar's hand and she squeezes his hand tight, drawing blood with her fingernails but neither of them care. They are two nervous. The next hour or so will determine whether or not Cato comes home to them. She watches as Katniss comes to a more horrible conclusion than she did. She had seen the blonde Muttation and thought humans but she hadn't put it together the way Katniss does when she sees the blonde one and screams. Briar watches as she looks at several of the Mutts, her eyes lighting in recognition before she tells Peeta and the rest of the viewers what she has discovered, that each of the Mutts represents and looks like one of the dead Tributes. The Mutts are getting smarter, they cannot climb the Cornucopia but if they attack from both sides and jump as high as they can they might be able to scare the Tributes into falling off the metal structure. Peeta and Katniss move toward the higher end of the Cornucopia where Cato is laying, trying to regain his breath, energy, and strength.

"Get up Cato," Briar breathes, glaring at the two Tributes that are moving toward him. "Get up, baby, you can do this. You have to do this." As if he can hear her Cato begins to stand, when Katniss is distracted by a Mutt that can only be Thresh he stands and grabs Peeta, wrapping his strong arm around the smaller boy's neck even as one of the Mutts manages to bite open a gash in the boy's leg. Katniss turns back to him in surprise and loads an arrow in her bow, preparing to shoot him in the face, but Cato simply laughs.

"Shoot me and he goes down with me." Katniss seems to realize this at the same moment Cato says it because she begins to lower her bow. Cato laughs again as Peeta's face begins to turn blue from a lack of air. He continues to goad Katniss as the Mutts get louder, angry that they were unable to kill any of the Tributes. "Go on!" Cato continues. "Shoot, and we both go down and you win. Go on. I'm dead anyway. I always was, right? I couldn't tell that until now. How's that, is that what they want?" he asked, looking around him as if he could see the GameMakers, the men and women who up until this point Briar hadn't noticed clearly favored Katniss from District 12. As much as Cato's words broke her heart she realized he was right. It didn't matter how good and smart Cato was or how many sponsors he had, he was dead the moment Katniss had volunteered for her sister. He was dead because in the end the GameMakers got to decide who won the Games. "I can still do this," he continued, his arm tightening around Peeta's neck. "I can still do this. One more kill. It's the only thing I know how to do, bringing pride to my District. Not that it matters." As he says this he finds one of the hidden cameras and makes eye contact with it, Briar stares into his bright blue eyes and sobs because she takes his final speech for how he means it, it is his way to tell her that he loves her.

_"But I want you to know," Cato said, dropping one of his hands from her cheeks so that he could grab one of her hands and lift it to his lips, pressing a soft, gentle kiss onto the back of her hand, the tips of her fingers, her palm, the inside of her wrist. "When I talk about bringing honor and pride and glory to my District I'm really talking about you. I'm telling you that I love you." _A sob breaks through her lips when she remembers the memory from before he left the District. _Bringing pride to my District ... I love you_.

She watches with silent tears slipping down her cheeks as Peeta raises one of his bloodstained hands and draws a bloody _X_ on the back of one of Cato's hands. Another sob rips through her body as one of Katniss' arrows pierce the skin in the middle of the mark. A scream from the District mixes with Cato's as he reflexively lets go of Peeta and begins to fall off of the Cornucopia. And just as two years ago after Magnus Briar does not realize that she is the one that is screaming until her face is cradled against someone's chest and the scream is muffled. But this isn't the chest she needs right now, these aren't the right arms wrapped around her. Gunnar's chest is hard and strong, his arms are warm, and he smells so familiar but it is not the same. He is not Cato. "I need Cato," she sobbed softly trying to block out the sounds of what is going on on the screen.

"I know," Gunnar breathed softly, wrapping his arms tighter around Briar and protect her from the curious and sympathetic looks from those in the square. "I'm so sorry, Briar," he breathed, running his fingers through her hair. He holds her like this, her face shoved tight against his chest so that she can't see what is going on in the arena, for almost an hour as she tries to block out the sounds of both human and animal pain as Cato singlehandedly takes on the Mutt pack. Briar knows that she's trembling, she can feel it, but she can't find it in herself to make it stop, to try to appear brave. There is no one to be brave for anymore, Cato isn't going to come home, she can feel it. And he was the reason she had tried to be brave in the first place. She flinches violently as she hears when Cato has given up and the Mutts pull him inside the Cornucopia. "It'll be over soon," Gunnar whispers although they both know that it's a lie.

For Cato it won't be over until Katniss or Peeta kill him. The GameMakers won't let the Mutts kill him because in their minds this is the ultimate form of entertainment. None of the citizens in Panem will be able to look away from their screens except the ones related to Cato. It would be an easy out to allow the Mutts to kill Cato, one of the Tributes will have to do it. As for Briar she knows that it will never be over. She will be haunted for the rest of her life. She hasn't seen what is going on in the arena, but she can hear it and those sounds will follow her wherever she goes until she dies. She will constantly remember the feel of Cato's arms around her and the empty feeling in her chest now as she listens to his sounds of pain. Even though Cato is the one in physical pain he's going to be the one who gets off easy. Death will be easy. Living will be hard. Briar will never be able to let go of this pain.

And this is the true meaning of the Games. This is how the Capitol exerts its control over the Districts. Each year twenty-three families are forced to watch as their loved ones are brutally murdered on screen. Each year twenty-three lives are lost forever. Briar will be broken for the rest of her life, never truly able to put herself back together again. She will feel guilty whenever she manages to forget for even a moment, each smile (and there will only be a few of them over her life) will bring pain because it will be a constant reminded that Cato is no longer there to share her happiness with. She sobs openly and loudly in Gunnar's arms for her boy, the man she loved with all of her being. Gunnar keeps running his fingers through her hair and whispering reassuring promises into her ears, they're lies, kind lies, but lies all the same. The only thing that draws her face from Gunnar's chest is when she hears Cato say her name. "Briar," he manages to moan through all of the pain that he's feeling. "Briar." That's all, just her name. But the effort it takes for him to say it, the fact that it's the last word to ever truly leave his lips says volumes about how much he loves her.

Briar lifts her head off Gunnar's chest and is surprised by two things. First almost every head in the square is turned away from the television and instead looking toward her with sympathy shining in their eyes. They are all trying to understand what she and Cato's family are going through right now. They'll never be able to truly understand, but she is thankful for the effort. The other thing she notices is that Katniss is standing up and moving toward the mouth of the horn with her last arrow strung in her bow. She stands on the edge, her bow poised as she looks down on Cato and Briar's breath catches in her throat when she realizes that Cato is trying to say _please_, he is begging to die because he is in so much pain. She can't bring herself to hate Katniss when she finally looses her arrow into his skull. There is no vengeance or hatred in her face when she pulls away, it was pity that had led her to kill him, not anger.

Briar closes her eyes and begins to wail when the cannon booms, signaling that Cato is gone. She loses touch with the world after that. Gunnar will later tell her that while she didn't pass out she refused to open her eyes and that her sobbing was so loud that she couldn't hear what was going on in the arena. She didn't feel as her brothers, Cato's parents, her parents, and even complete strangers wrapped their arms around her and blocked her view of the screen just in case she opened her eyes. She didn't notice that Gunnar had picked her up and carried her out of the square despite the pain he was probably in at losing his brother. All she knew was that she woke up the next morning in Cato's bed, his smell surrounding her with his blankets. She learned that despite the fact that the GameMakers took back their decision to allow two victors Katniss and Peeta had both survived the Games. She felt a hollow pain where her heart should have been when she learned this, learned that Katniss would get the fairytale while Briar and Cato would never be able to see each other again. She closed her eyes and sobbed again. _"How do you feel about a summer wedding?" she asked; half joking, half serious. _

-.-.-.-.-

Briar stayed in Cato's bedroom for the better part of a week, she barely ate or drank, she barely slept. She simply surrounded herself with his smell and cried. It was only once she realized that she couldn't cry anymore that she left the room. As much as she didn't like it, as much as she didn't feel like doing it she owed Cato this much. She changed her clothes, choosing to wear one of Cato's shirts so that she could still smell him even after she left his room she climbed out of his window one night a week after the Games ended and traveled to their field. She wasn't surprised when she caught sight of the roaring bonfire in front of her, they had been waiting for her, she had seen the fire from Cato's window every night for a week. She had no doubt that it would continue until she joined them.

She could hear the subdued chatter as she approached the circle but it stopped the moment their friends caught sight of her. And then Gunnar stood up, silently making his way over to her he handed her a full bottle of alcohol and a daisy. Briar stood in front of the group, blinking down at the flower in her hand and forcing herself not to cry before she looked up at the group and realized they were all waiting on her. She sighed and swallowed the lump in her throat, this was going to be harder than she thought it would be when she left Cato's room. She held the bottle up in the air and forced herself to look at those sitting around the fire. "This time last year Cato told us that this is what he wanted if he died," she said softly, but it was so quiet around the circle that she knew they could hear every word she said. "He said that he didn't want crying or tears, just this. All of his friends sitting around a fire and getting drunk in his honor. I haven't managed to do what he wanted as well as you guys have. I've been crying," she admitted, a soft chuckle rose from the group because they were all well aware that she had been crying. "But we're all here for the same reason," she said softly. "Because we loved Cato," she paused, "and Clove. We loved them and now that the Games are done we're forced to mourn their loss. So, here's to them. The girl I owe my life to, and the boy I loved with all of my heart. To Cato and Clove."

She choked back tears as everyone around the circle repeated _To Cato and Clove_ and she took a seat next to Gunnar. People began to tell their favorite stories about the Tributes and though Briar didn't share any of her stories, they were too personal, too precious to share, she found herself relaxing a bit. She even smiled once when one of the boys talked about when Cato had beaten him up for saying that he thought Briar was pretty. The smile slipped quickly from her face and she felt guilty, but in the moments after she realized that maybe she would be able to begin to heal.

She'd never be perfect, she'd never fall in love again, or even truly be happy again. But she would heal, she wold get stronger. And she was sure that one day in the future, she would see Cato again.

* * *

Author's Note:  
And that's all. (Except for the AU chapter that should be coming in the next week and a half.)  
I want to apologize for the long wait. Graduation and moving out of my apartment at school made things a bit hectic and difficult. And I knew that I was going to reach the end during this chapter and a big part of me did not want to kill Cato off so I kept delaying writing it.  
There was a very large part of me that wanted to say _screw the book and screw an additional AU chapter, let's just make Cato the official winner of the Games_. But I had stuck true to the books so far and I didn't want to stop now. (Although killing Clove was particularly hard to do. I didn't love her as much as Cato when I read the books and watched the movie, but I fell in love with **my** Clove and it was hard.)  
I would just like to apologize to anyone that I made cry during this endeavor.  
I hope you guys liked this chapter (and the entirety of this story) even though it ended on a sad note.  
Please **review** to let me know what you think. I honestly, honestly love reading what you guys thought of the story.  
A quick shout out to some of the reviews I got on the last chapter:  
_TheFanFictionGirl_: Thank you my dear for all of your reviews! I am so glad that you've enjoyed this story so much that not only did you review three chapters in a row, but you've memorized some of the parts. You flatter me. I hope that you enjoyed the heartbreaking ending, and that it didn't disappoint you. I'm both worried that it could be too depressing and yet not depressing enough. What do you think?  
_Dreamsnhugs: _Aww baby! I'm sorry that you've cried through the entire story. I hope that you didn't cry too much during this chapter. Thank you for reviewing and don't worry you **will** get your happy AU ending soon.  
That's all I've got for now. Check back later for the happier ending. The one I wanted to write from the beginning but wouldn't allow myself to deviate from the book for.  
I'll see you back here soon.  
Hugs and kisses,  
Chloe Jane.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Hunger Games_ or any of the recognizable characters. I do however, own Briar Greenlaw, so do what you will with that.

I'm going to apologize for two things before you start reading:

1. I'm sorry this took so long for me to finish. I got a full time job, some family came to visit, the muse just wasn't with me for a while. It was just a series of unfortunate events that caused this to come out so late.

2. I'm sorry this is so short (and possibly bad). I'm beginning to understand why the epilogue of Harry Potter sucked so bad. It's hard to make something end happily when there's really nothing happy about it. I like this chapter, but I don't love it. Honestly, I loved the actual ending of the story (where Cato died). Maybe I should write about character death more often. Anyway, despite all this, I hope you like this chapter.

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Just so that people don't get confused: **THIS IS AN ALTERNATE ENDING!** (I didn't just happen to forget that I killed Cato in the last chapter.)

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The excitement on the train platform felt electric. Briar could hear it, see it, feel it, and she was convinced she could even taste it. It felt different from the other times District 2 had gathered on the platform to meet with their Victor And she knew why. It was different because this year it was _her_ Victor. It had been almost twenty days since the last time she had been on this platform, but the circumstances had completely changed. The last time she had been fighting tears, she had been reassuring herself that Cato was going to be okay, that he was going to come back to her. But those had all been empty words, she had no control over whether Cato came home alive and to be honest Cato had very little control over it either. But he had kept his promise, he was finally coming home. And this time, when she saw him on the train she wouldn't need to fight back tears. She was sure that there would be tears, a girl couldn't watch the love of her life fight for his life for almost two weeks and want to cry when he finally came back to her completely safe; but she wouldn't need to fight the tears now. She had no one she needed to put an act on for now, no one she needed to seem brave for, and they would be happy tears for the most part.

She knew that there would be some sad tears. Despite his best efforts Cato hadn't been able to bring Clove home, her body had arrived in a hovercraft a week ago. Her family had had her body cremated and they were just waiting for Cato to come back so that he could be there when they spread her ashes. That was kind of them, Briar knew that Clove's death would haunt Cato for years, so she was thankful to the young girl's family for giving him a chance to say goodbye. Briar didn't like to think about Clove. It broke her heart to remember having to watch the young girl die. She was brave and strong and even deadly, but in the moments before her death Briar hadn't been able to see any of those things. All she could see was a small, slim, broken child who was fighting for her life. All she could hear when she thought about Clove was Cato's broken voice as he begged her to stay with him and then when he realized she couldn't how he tried to tell her about home so that the last thoughts she had were happy ones. All she could think about when she thought about Clove was that the girl had saved her life, volunteered to go into the Games for her so that she wouldn't be forced to do so. She owed Clove so much and now she would never be able to even say thank you, let alone return the favor.

The deaths had always been the worst part of the Games. It was easy to simply cheer for your Tributes and forget that the other Tributes had family and friends back in their District cheering for them as well when they were alive. It was easy to look at the other Tributes as enemies, obstacles rather than people when they were alive. But once they were dying it was impossible not to see them for what they really were. And what they really were was twenty-four scared children who were forced to fight for their lives and murder kids that they could have been friends with had they all grown up in the same District. Briar had no trouble admitting that if Katniss Everdeen, for example, hadn't been sent into the arena to try to kill Cato and if she had grown up in District 2, the two girls would have been friends. The girl from District 12 had been a formidable opponent until the very end and Briar respected her for that, liked her for that even. But all of those qualities that Briar could have respected were the very same qualities that made Katniss a threat for Cato. Threats against Cato were something that Briar could not tolerate. She had rooted for Katniss Everdeen's death, she had even cheered when Cato had managed to push her off of the Cornucopia - she had allowed herself to see the girl as nothing but a threat.

Now that Cato was coming home, now that he was safe Briar allowed herself to see the error of her thoughts. Katniss had a boy who loved her, a boy who was sent to the Games with her. Katniss had to hold him when he died because she didn't get the medicine in time. Her fight against Clove at the Cornucopia, Thresh letting her go had all been for nothing. She made it back to their cave and she gave Peeta the medicine, but it didn't do any good; it was already too late. And he wasn't the only person Katniss Everdeen had. She probably had friends in District 12, a mother and a father that loved her, she had a little sister - one that she had volunteered for because she loved her that much. Briar swallowed the lump in her throat when she realized that she had cheered when this girl died, she had been happy even as all of those people that loved and cared for Katniss Everdeen were forced to face the worst pain imaginable. And Briar had been happy because that meant that she wouldn't be the one that had to feel that pain, that loss. She had wished it on someone else.

They say that the Games changed people. The Victors were never the same when they came home. The families of fallen Tributes were broken. Briar wondered if the Victors and the families of dead Tributes were the only ones who were changed. What about people like her? The ones that loved the Victors? She wondered if she had changed. She wondered if Cato would notice that she wasn't as carefree as she had been twenty days ago. She wondered if Cato would know that she had become coldhearted and cheered at the death of a girl her age. That was not a moment she was particularly proud of, but she didn't regret the girl's death. She also wondered if her opinion about Cato had changed. She had always known that he was dangerous and even deadly, but there had been moments during the Games when he had been unnecessarily cruel. Would she ever bee able to believe him again when he promised her that he wouldn't hurt her or that he loved her? When she looked at him now would she be able to see the boy she loved or would she only picture him killing people like he had done in the arena. She swallowed another lump in her throat because she hoped that wasn't the case.

Would he even want to see her? Would he want to be with her after everything he had seen and done in the arena? Would he be so damaged, too broken and angry to want to be with anybody? Would he be the same? Would he want to be with her when he realized that she had screamed and cheered with the rest of the District when he pushed Katniss Everdeen off of the Cornucopia. There would be no doubt that the Games had changed Cato, but had they changed Briar? Would he not want her now that she had fallen into the Capitol's trap? He had always forced her to be careful and quiet about her dislike of the Games, but she was sure that he had loved that part of her; and she still hated the Games, but she had cheered this year, rooted for the deaths of other Tributes. After being in the arena would Cato be damaged enough that the idea of Briar cheering for the death of another Tribute (one that he himself might have killed) make him hate her?

This was supposed to be a happy time. As Briar looked around the platform and saw the way all the people were staring at her that she should be thrilled and excited. The train had been sighted, Cato was only five minutes away. But she had so many questions, so many fears that she knew she couldn't be excited yet. She'd be happy when Cato got off the train and gave her the same smile he had given when he left. It wouldn't be until she saw that smile that she would know that everything was okay, that everything would be normal eventually. And that's all she really wanted, was to know that the Games, something that should have never existed in the first place, hadn't changed Cato and her and the love they had. Aside from the fear that Cato would die, her biggest fear was that it would destroy the beautiful boy she had fallen in love with when she was a young girl. It would be more of a crime if the Capitol had destroyed that boy. Briar knew that if her Cato wasn't the one that got of the train she would do everything she could to ensure that the Capitol paid for destroying him.

She had watched and re-watched Cato's interviews from after the Games. She wanted to have some kind of idea of what she would face when he came home. But he had been guarded during the interviews, he hadn't been rude, but he had been quiet, reserved. He didn't want to talk about what had happened in the arena. The only thing he talked about was how he couldn't wait to get home. The one part of the interview that had given Briar any hope was when Caesar had asked Cato what he most looked forward to now that he was a Victor. Cato had smiled and said that all he wanted was a hug from Briar. That had been enough to tell Briar that at least things hadn't changed so much that Cato didn't love her. Now her fear was that when he saw her he would realize that she had changed. And that he wouldn't want the new Briar.

Her breath hitched when the train rounded the corner in front of the station and it started to pull into the platform. Gunnar seemed to have heard it because he reached out and gently rubbed his hand up and down her arm, grounding her. The crowd around her surged forward so that they could get a better view of their Victor. Briar couldn't see the door anymore, but she wasn't worried, she knew that the moment Cato started to make his way toward her the crowd would part for them. She couldn't hear the doors hiss open, but she could tell by the loud screams of the people around her that Cato had stepped off the train.

-.-.-.-.-

Cato had known to expect a large crowd at the train platform when he arrived. That happened every year that one of District 2's Tributes won in the arena. But the size and excitement in the crowd the day he arrived honestly surprised him. He attributed it to Briar, from what he had heard in the Capitol in the week after the Games was that the country had really embraced him and Briar, they loved the girl that showed the softer side to one of the deadliest Tributes in the arena. They hadn't been as popular as Katniss and Peeta, and many were honestly heartbroken that the two from District 12 hadn't won, but if they couldn't win it was good that Cato would get to go home to the love of his life.

And she was, she was the love of his life. At night he had watched her interview when he had made it to the top eight. Her confidence in him, her inability to accept that he wouldn't come home to her had made him fall even more in love with her. She had been strong when he wasn't there for her, she hadn't given up on them, she had known that he would keep his promises to her and that he would come home. If he was to be honest with himself he would admit that it was those promises to Briar - the promise that he would win the Games so that he could come home to her, that got him through the Games. He had struggled, especially after Clove had died. He had promised Briar that he would take care of Clove, they both owed the young girl so much, and he hadn't been able to do that. Sio he refused to to break his other promise to her. He would go home to her. He wouldn't leave her alone or sad.

She was the first thing he looked for when the train doors opened, but he couldn't find her. There were too many people on the platform. His head snapped to the right and to the left, there was one moment when he worried that she wasn't there before the crowd quieted and began to move toward the two sides of the platform, leaving a path toward the back where he saw Briar and Gunnar waiting for him. He held his breath for a moment as he stared at her, she looked completely different but the same all at once. She looked gorgeous, her brown hair laced with daisies (he briefly wondered where she had found them, it wasn't daisy season) and falling past her shoulders in large, gentle curls. She wasn't wearing the same dress she had worn when saying goodbye to him - this one was new, but it was the same shade of green.

She broke away from Gunnar and stared at him, nervously playing with the hem of the dress as if she was unsure if he would like what he saw. He smiled softly at her worry, he could not understand why she would worry about that. Of course he wanted to see her, he had been waiting for this moment since the second he had been forced to leave her. Her worry and nerves left her face the moment he stepped onto the platform and began to move toward her. He counted his steps: one, two, three ... before she was running down the path the crowd had created for them and launching herself into his arms. He smiled at the happy giggle that escaped her lips as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, not even caring if it was inappropriate. It was that moment of unbridled happiness that made Cato realize everything would be okay one day, because even as the crowd began to cheer loudly again Briar didn't care about them. This moment was all about her and Cato. No one else mattered. He had been worried that things would change, but as she buried her face in the crook of his neck he realized that while the Games might have changed him and the way he thought, they hadn't changed anything between him and Briar. They would always be the same.

The brunette buried her head in the crook of Cato's neck and a moment later he felt her tear drops falling onto his shoulder, seeping through his shirt. He made a soothing noise and pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. He had always known that the tears were going to come. He had known that Briar was sensitive and that whether the tears were from happiness (that he was safe, that he was home, that he had made it out alive) or sadness (for Clove, over what he had done in the Games, for the innocence that was now lost) they would come. He had been prepared for that, but he hadn't expected them so early. He turned his head so that he could whisper in her ear. "Briar Patch," he said softly, smiling slightly when her breath caught at the nickname, he knew a part of her had never expected to hear him call her that again, "can we go to our field?" he asked softly.

For a moment he thought that Briar was going to say no. Because what he meant from his question was that she was going to need to stop crying ang walk to their field. He wondered if she was capable of doing that. She tensed for a moment before she nodded and pulled away from him enough that she could wipe away her tears. "Okay," she said. She unwrapped her legs and allowed Cato to gently lower her to the platform. The crowd was still cheering for him so Cato raised his hand so that he could wave at them. Briar grabbed his left hand in both of hers and waited until he was ready before she began to lead him through the parting crowd toward the exit.

He allowed her to lead him halfway to the exit before he stopped, forcing her to stop as well. He had just realized something important. She turned to look at him, confusion shining in her large doe eyes. He grinned at her. "You forgot something," he said softly before he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. He had intended for the kiss to be a chaste one, they had an audience after all, but the moment his lips brushed against Briar's all thoughts of being chaste or their audience left his mind. The only thing that mattered was the two of them, Briar and Cato, and their relationship, and their love. Gunnar would later tell him that the crowd had begun to cheer when they kissed, but Cato never heard them.

He pulled away from her after a minute or so, a lopsided grin resting on his lips before he grabbed her hand and led her off of the platform and toward their field. He briefly wondered if anyone in the crowd would try to follow them, but he figured that they knew well enough that the two needed some time to themselves. They would be throwing a banquet in his honor later that evening, and then he would have no choice but to interact with them. But for now he was free to run away with his girlfriend and spend the afternoon making sure that she knew that everything was still okay. He knew that was her biggest worry, she hadn't told him but he knew her well enough to know that she was worried that something had happened in arena that would make him change his mind about her and about them. That afternoon it would be his job to make sure that she understood that nothing could change his mind about what they had. Or so he thought.

They made it to the field and silently walked over to the tree. Cato had always been the quieter one of the two, but he was surprised at how quiet Briar was being. She didn't say a word, didn't make any noise, her gaze kept darting to him, her eyes scanning his face as if looking for a sign of injury before she would look away. Once they got to the tree she sat down on the ground rather ungracefully considering her dress and pulled Cato down with her. Cato waited for her to break down and start crying, but she didn't. Instead she reached out and began to run one of her hands up and down his arm. He wondered if she was going to continue being quiet, but then she opened her mouth, "Tell me about it. Tell me everything." Cato looked at her in surprise, but Briar was back to being the silent girlfriend again. He didn't say anything for about five minutes before he realized that she would continue to wait for him to talk, he sighed and asked her what she wanted to know. "Everything," she said softly, her brown eyes sad. "As much as you'll say you haven't, you've changed. You can't go through that and not change. Just watching it changed me. I need to get know the new you and you need to get to know the new me."

Cato hadn't wanted to have this conversation. He hadn't wanted to relive what had gone on in the arena. He hadn't wanted to talk about it to anyone, especially not Briar. But he realized that she was right, they needed to have this conversation before they could move forward. If he avoided this things between them would get strained. He had gone into the arena and fought to the death against twenty-three other kids and teenagers, he had been brave; but Briar was brave enough to do something that he couldn't. She was brave enough to admit that maybe things hadn't changed between the two of them, but they had changed. He smiled at her and leaned forward to lightly press his lips against hers. "I love you," he said softly before he began to talk.

-.-.-.-.-

Things got better over the months after the Games. Cato, who had been quick to promise that he was okay had spent countless nights waking in the middle of the night to sweat inducing nightmares of being back in the arena. Briar had moved into his house in Victor's Village with him and she was always there to calm him down after the nightmares. No matter how many times he had woken her up she never complained. She'd wrap her arms around his shoulders and hold him until he calmed down. Many nights the only thing that seemed to keep him sane were her whispered, _You're fine_'s and _I'm right here_'s. He kept waiting for the day when Briar would have enough, when she would say that she couldn't deal with it anymore.

But she never did. In truth, Briar needed Cato as much as he needed her. She had nightmares almost as often as he did. She didn't dream about the arena, she had nightmares about what her life would be like if Cato had never come home. She would wake up shaking and crying with Cato's arms wrapped around her, holding her to him so that she could feel his body wrapped all around her. He would softly whisper to her, telling her that everything was okay, and that he wasn't going to go anywhere. He would promise her that he would be there when she woke up every morning for the rest of their lives.

The Victor's Tour had been really bad on both of them. They had gotten used to being with each other practically all of the time. When they were forced to separate for the tour it had been difficult, they both worried. Briar worried about rational things such as the revolts that were happening in the outlying Districts like 11 and 12. Cato worried about irrational things like someone killing Briar when he was gone and unable to protect her. He knew it was stupid of him to worry about things like that, but now that he knew what it was like to think he might never see her again he couldn't help but worry. They both slept better when the month long tour was over and he was able to come home. He had even received special permission to bring Briar to the Capitol with him when he mentored for the next Games.

One night about a month after the Victory Tour Briar came home from the training school to find that Cato had not only cooked her dinner but made a romantic dinner on the back porch of the house. "What's this for?" she asked him as he pulled her onto the back porch and gently pushed her down into the chair.

Cato had laughed at her, "Is there something wrong with me wanting to make you dinner?" he asked, his tone teasing and light although his eyes were tense. Briar could tell that he was nervous about something. She wondered if it had something to do with the Games, did he know what the next Quarter Quell was going to be? But he didn't say anything about it during dinner, in fact they barely said a word to each other; Briar was too confused about what was going on and Cato seemed to nervous about whatever was on his mind to make much conversation. He had asked Briar what she had for lunch three times in the hour they were at the table.

Finally she put her fork down on the table and looked at Cato nervously. "Cato?" she asked, her voice timid as if she was expecting him to yell at her. Cato looked up at her and nodded, silently prompting her to continue, but not saying anything. She sighed, "Are you going to tell me to move out?" Cato honestly looked surprised at her question. She sighed again, "You don't do this," she said, gesturing to the table of food between them. "This is something I would do. You don't make dinners and you definitely don't sit there looking nervous for an hour unless you have bad news. Just tell me what it is. I'm sure that we can fix it."

Cato stared at her with wide eyes for a long moment before he laughed. He heard Briar mutter a moody,_ it's not funny_. He forced himself to calm down before he stood up and dragged his chair closer to Briar's. He reached out for her hand and smiled when she slipped her small hand into his, he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, stalling for a bit more time before he looked up at her, his blue eyes cautious. "Do you have any idea how much you worry about things?" he asked her softly. "I make you dinner and you think I'm going to end our relationship." He chuckled and swore softly, "Fuck, Bri. I wouldn't let go of you if you were begging me to. I love you and nothing is ever going to change that. The arena didn't change that, the Games didn't change that, what I did ... what I saw, none of that could change the way I feel about you. I'm just lucky enough that none of that changed the way you felt about me. You have been my perfect girl since I was seven years old. You're naive and smart, gentle and tough, sweet and brutally honest at the same time. You never need anyone to protect you and yet you let me take care of you. You're my best friend, my favorite person, and the love of my life. You always push me to do the absolute best I can. You take care of everyone around you, always do what's expected or demanded of you, but you think for yourself. Before the arena I never questioned what went on in this country; it was just the way things were - nothing we could change, something that would always happen. But you always questioned it, you tried to fight against it, I never let you - I was too afraid of losing you. After the arena I realized that you were right, the Games," he paused and looked down, forcing himself to loosen his too-tight grip on Briar's hand, "they're not right. And someone needs to stop them. Somehow and soon. I don't want my children to grow up in fear too."

Briar's eyes widened at the mention of _children_. She and Cato had joked around about their future before the Games (they didn't really talk about it now), but they had never mentioned children. She had assumed that Cato didn't want any. "Are you trying to tell me that you want to start a revolution?" she asked him softly, her eyes darting from side to side, looking for a peacekeeper, worried that Cato would be taken away from her for what he had just said.

"No," Cato said, shaking his head. He was frustrated, he had tried to be as clear as he could, but he had gotten mixed up along the way. He did think a revolution needed to happen, he would gladly take part in it if he needed to. But that wasn't what he was trying to say now. "What I'm trying to do right now is ask you to marry me."

"To marry you?" Briar asked, looking extremely surprised. Cato sighed, he was sure that she had seen this coming. They had been together practically their entire life, he thought it was a given that one day he would ask her to marry him. Suddenly he worried that she didn't want to marry him, he began to tell her about how long they had been dating and how he had always assumed that they would get married. Briar let him continue for a few minutes before she reached out and placed her other hand over their clasped hands. "Cato," she said softly, lifting their hands so that she could press a kiss on his hand. "Why are you getting so worked up?"

Cato raised his eyebrows, surprised at her. "Why?" he sputtered. "I was going to ask you to marry me, I thought you loved me, but you don't want to marry me! Why wouldn't I be worked up right now?" He was being a bit hysterical, but for a long time now his life had revolved around Briar. She had kept him grounded throughout the Games, she had been his reason to survive and come home. And now in a span of ten minutes she was ripping his heart to shreds with a smile on her face. She smiled softly and told him that she had never said that she didn't want to marry him. "Well you haven't said yes either," he pointed out, glaring at his foot.

"You haven't asked me yet," Briar said softly. "You told me why, you told me you wanted to ask me. But you haven't asked me."

Cato's grin matched Briar's once it hit him that she had never planned on saying no. She was simply waiting for him to ask her. "Smart ass," he muttered under his breath to Briar's amusement before her looked up at her, "Briar Greenlaw," he whispered. "Will you marry me?" Briar had jumped out of her chair and thrown herself into his arms chanting, _Yes!_ before he had even had a chance to finish his question.

-.-.-.-.-

There wedding was in the summer just as they had planned. It was at sunset and as she had promised Briar had worn their daisies in her hair. She was the most beautiful thing that Cato had ever seen in his life. She had always been beautiful to him, but there was something so magical and gorgeous about her that evening as she made her way toward him.

She had cried, along with almost every guest as they said their vows, it was everything either of them had ever wanted. Cato's only regret had been that Clove never got to be there to share it with them. They both owed her so much. Briar seemed to understand how he felt because during a quiet moment at the banquet afterward she had wrapped her arms around him and whispered a promise to him. She promised that they would name their first girl after Clove. Cato had to swallow a large lump in his throat before he could even nod. He had wanted to thank her, but he couldn't find the words. She had reached out and grasped his forearm and squeezed it gently. She understood that as much as Clove had meant to her, the young girl would always mean more to Cato.

The Quarter Quell the next year had been the last Games. There had been a country wide rebellion after that. Cato hadn't led it, it had been started, it seemed, by a young man from District 12, one of Katniss Everdeen's friends. Cato took part in it and as much as he tried to keep Briar from joining she had as well. It was a year long effort, but the citizens of Panem won in the end and a new government was put in place. Panem was finally free from the terror of the Capitol. It was only then, when the country was free that Briar and Cato began to have a family. They had two boys before they finally got their girl, Clove. Every year, at the time when the Games were held the Districts would have a memorial for those they had lost over the seventy-five years of Games.

Briar Greenlaw always wondered how it was done in the other Districts. The memorials. She understood that in the outlying Districts they were more solemn affairs, that the memory of each of the lost Tributes was a bit harder to face than in the other Districts. Every year she watched the memorial from District 12, the camera's always seemed to find Primrose Everdeen's face. The young girl was older now, no longer the twelve year old from Cato's Games. People still talked about them, and the heroes that came out of those Games. Clove, who had volunteered for a complete stranger just so that she wouldn't have to face going into the arena with her boyfriend, the crippled boy who should never have been in the Games, Little Rue who had dared the citizens of the country to care about someone from outside their District, Thresh who had shown courage and kindness and given his enemy a second chance, Katniss and Peeta who had practically started the revolution though neither of them lived to see it, Gale Hawthorne who had started the revolts, Cato who had won the Games but hadn't been proud of it and had taken part in the revolution. They were common names every where in the country.

But most importantly, Cato got his wish. His children grew up in a country that was not haunted by the Games. They would never have to know the terror of the Reapings or have to worry about going into an arena and murdering other kids their age. Being in the Games had been the worst part of Cato's life, Briar's too, but in the end it had been the catalyst for change - a change the country had needed.

* * *

Author's Note:  
And that is **the end**. Can you guys believe it? I can't.  
I want to thank each and every one of you for your support during this process. You guys were absolutely amazing. So thank you to each and every one of my readers. Thanks to those who favorited this story or added it to their alerts list.  
But a **special **thank you to anyone who reviewed this story, your reviews meant so much to me! So thank you, thank you, thank you. Briar and Cato wouldn't have gotten past the first chapter if it weren't for you guys (you know who you are.)  
Someone mentioned that I should write a new story in which Briar goes to the Games. I'm not saying that I never will, but I will not make any promises. I will probably write another_ Hunger Games _fic, I've been playing around with the idea of writing one about Finnick, but at the moment I think Briar and Cato's story is done. It wouldn't work if Briar went into the Games with him.  
Anyway, I'm so glad that I was given the chance to entertain you while you read this story. So thank you for that.  
Please do me a favor and leave a review before you leave. I would really love to hear from everybody.  
Thank you so, so **so **much for reading!  
Hugs and kisses,  
Chloe Jane.


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